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LIBRARY 
Connecticut  Agricultural  College 


Vol         IQ^  Q^ 

Class  No.        SU.^" 
Cost 

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I 


BOOK    8n.5.K32Z   c  1 
KEMP    #    TRAMPING    ON    LIFE 


3    T153    OOOOnai    2 


This  Book  may  be  kept  out 


Tramping  on   Life 


Ml 


By  the  same  Author: 
Judas,  a  four-act  Biblical  drama 
The  Cey  of  Youth,  poems 
The  Thresher's  Wife,  a  narrative  poem 
The  Passing  God,  poems 
Ballads  and  Chanteys,  poems 


In  Preparation: 

The  Love-Rogue,  the  original  Don  Juan 
Flay,  after  the  Spanish  of  Tirso  de 
Molina 


Tramping  on  Life 


AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  NARRATIVE 


HARRY  KEMP 


'   *    I 


BONI    AND     LIVERIGHT 

Publishers  New  York 


y 


.^^rhh^ 


Copyright,  1922,  by 

BONI    AND    LiVERlOHT,    IxC. 


;d3  it 

First  Printing,  September,  1922 

Second  Printing,  November,  1922 

Third  Printing,  January,  1923 

Fourth  Printing,  April,  1923 


Printed   in    the    United   States    of   America 


All  in  this  book  that  is  good  and  endur- 
ing and  worth  while  for  humanity,  I 
dedicate   to   the  memory   of  my   wife, 

MARY  PYNE 

Waterhury,  Connecticut, 
May  20, 1922. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Now  I  am  writing  these  things  just  as  I  was  told  them  by  my 
grandmother.  For  I  have  utterly  no  remembrance  of  my  mother. 
Consumption  ran  in  her  family.  And  bearing  and  giving  birth  to  me 
woke  the  inherited  weakness  in  her.  She  was  not  even  strong  enough 
to  suckle  me. 

I  was  born  in  the  early  eighties,  in  Mornington,  Ohio,  in  a  section 
of  that  great,  steel-manufacturing  city  which  was  neither  city, 
suburb,  nor  country, — but  a  muddy,  green-splashed,  murky  mixture 
of  all  three. 

•  ••«••• 

They  told  me,  when  I  was  old  enough  to  understand,  that  my 
mother  was  English,  that  her  folks  lived  in  Cleveland  and  owned  a 
millinery  and  drygoods  store  there  .  .  and  that  my  father  met 
my  mother  one  day  in  Mornington.  She  was  visiting  an  uncle  who 
ran  a  candy  store  on  Main  Street,  and,  she  girl-like,  laughed  and 
stood  behind  the  counter,  ready  for  a  flirtation.  .  . 

My  father  was  young,  too.  And  he  was  employed  there  in  the 
store,  apprenticed  to  the  candy-maker's  trade.  And,  on  this  day, 
as  he  passed  through,  carrying  a  trayful  of  fresh-dipped  chocolates, 
he  winked  at  my  mother  and  joked  with  her  in  an  impudent  way 
.  .  and  she  rebuifed  him,  not  really  meaning  a  rebuff,  of  course  .  . 
and  he  startled  her  by  pulling  off  his  hat  and  grotesquely  showing 
himself  to  be  entirely  bald  .  .  for  he  had  grown  bald  very  young 
— at  the  age  of  sixteen  .  .  both  because  of  scarlet  fever,  and 
because  baldness  for  the  men  ran  in  his  family  .  .  and  he  was  tall, 
and  dark,  and  walked  with  rather  a  military  carriage. 

I  was  four  years  old  when  my  mother  died. 

When  she  fell  sick,  they  tell  me,  my  grandfather  did  one  of  the 
few  decent  acts  of  his  life — he  let  my  father  have  a  farm  he  owned 
in  central  Kansas,  near  Hutchinson.  But  my  father  did  not  try 
to  work  it. 

T 


8  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

He  was  possessed  of  neither  the  capital  nor  knowledge  necessary 
for  farming. 

He  went  to  work  as  clerk  in  a  local  hotel,  in  the  rapidly  growing 
town.  Crazy  with  grief,  he  watched  my  mother  drop  out  of  his  life 
a  little  more  each  day. 

My  father  and  mother  both  had  tempers  that  flared  up  and  sank 
as  suddenly. 

I  had  lung  fever  when  I  was  a  baby.  That  was  what  they  called 
it  then.     I  nearly  died  of  it.     It  left  me  very  frail  in  body. 

As  soon  as  I  could  walk  and  talk  my  mother  made  a  great  com- 
panion of  me.  She  didn't  treat  me  as  if  I  were  only  a  child.  She 
treated  me  like  a  grown-up  companion.  I  am  told  that  I  would  fol- 
low her  about  the  house  from  room  to  room,  clutching  at  her  skirts, 
while  she  was  dusting  and  sweeping  and  working.  And  to  hear  us 
two  talking  with  each  other,  you  would  have  imagined  there  was  a 
houseful  of  people. 

My  father's  anguish  over  my  mother's  death  caused  him  to  break 
loose  from  all  ties.  His  grief  goaded  him  so  that  he  went  about  aim- 
lessl}'.  He  roamed  from  state  to  state,  haunted  by  her  memory. 
He  worked  at  all  sorts  of  jobs.  Once  he  even  dug  ditches  for 
seventy-five  cents  a  day.  He  had  all  sorts  of  adventures,  roaming 
about. 

As  for  me,  I  was  left  alone  with  my  grandmother,  his  mother, — in 
the  big  house  which  stood  back  under  the  trees,  aloof  from  the  wide, 
dusty  road  that  led  to  the  mills. 

With  us  lived  my  young,  unmarried  aunt,  Millie  .  .  . 

My  grandmother  had  no  education.  She  could  barely  read  and 
write. 

And  she  believed  in  everybody. 

She  was  stout  .  .  sparse-haired  .  .  wore  a  switch  .  .  had  kindly, 
confiding,  blue  eyes. 

Beggars,  tramps,  pack-peddlers,  book-agents,  fortune-tellers, — 
she  lent  a  credulous  ear  to  all, — helped  others  when  we  ourselves 
needed  help,  signed  up  for  preposterous  articles  on  "easy"  monthly 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  9 

payments, — gave    away    food,    starving    her    appetite    and    ours. 
When,  child  though  I  was,  even  I  protested,  she  would  say,  "well, 
Johnnie,  you  might  be  a  tramp  some  day,  and  how  would  I  feel 
if  I  thought  some  one  was  turning  you  away  hungry?" 


My  Grandfather  Gregory  was  a  little,  alert,  erect,  suave  man, 
— he  was  a  man  whose  nature  was  such  that  he  would  rather  gain 
a  dollar  by  some  cheeky,  brazen,  oif-colour  practice  than  earn  a 
hundred  by  honest  methods. 

He  had  keen  grey  eyes  that  looked  you  in  the  face  in  utter,  dis- 
arming frankness.  He  was  always  immaculately  dressed.  He  talked 
continually  about  money,  and  about  how  people  abused  his  confi- 
dence and  his  trust  in  men.  But  there  was  a  sharpness  like  pointed 
needles  in  the  pupils  of  his  eyes  that  betrayed  his  true  nature. 

Coming  to  Mornington  as  one  of  the  city's  pioneers,  at  first  he 
had  kept  neck  to  neck  in  social  prestige  with  the  Babsons,  Guelders, 
and  the  rest,  and  had  built  the  big  house  that  my  grandmother, 
my  aunt,  and  myself  now  lived  in,  on  Mansion  avenue  .  . 

When  the  Civil  War  broke  out,  that  streak  of  adventure  and 
daring  in  my  grandfather  which  in  peace  times  turned  him  to  shady 
financial  transactions,  now  caused  him  to  enlist.  And  before  the 
end  of  the  war  he  had  gone  far  up  in  the  ranks. 

After  the  war  he  came  into  still  more  money  by  a  manufacturing 
business  which  he  set  up.  But  the  secret  process  of  the  special  kind 
of  material  which  he  manufactured  he  inveigled  out  of  a  comrade  in 
arms.  The  latter  never  derived  a  cent  from  it.  My  grandfather 
stole  the  patent,  taking  it  out  in  his  own  name.  The  other  man  had 
trusted  him,  remembering  the  times  they  had  fought  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  and  had  bivouacked  together.  .  . 

My  grandfather,  though  so  small  as  to  be  almost  diminutive,  was 
spry  and  brave  as  an  aroused  wasp  when  anyone  insulted  him. 
Several  times  he  faced  down  burly-bodied  men  who  had  threatened 
to  kill  him  for  his  getting  the  better  of  them  in  some  doubtful 
business  transaction. 

For  a  long  time  his  meanness  and  sharp  dealings  were  reserved 
for  outsiders  and  he  was  generous  with  his  family.  And  my  sweet, 
simple,  old  grandmother  belonged  to  all  the  societies,  charitable  and 
otherwise,  in  town  .  .  but  she  was   not,  never  could  be  "smart." 


10  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

She  was  always  saying  and  doing  naive  things  from  the  heart.  And 
soon  she  began  to  disapprove  of  my  grandfather's  slick  business 
ways. 

I  don't  know  just  what  tricks  he  put  over  .  .  but  he  became 
persona  non  grata  in  local  business  circles  .  .  and  he  took  to 
running  about  the  country,  putting  through  various  projects  here 
and  there  .  .  this  little,  dressy,  hard-faced  man  .  .  like  a  cross 
between  a  weasel  and  a  bird ! 

He  dropped  into  Mornington,  and  out  again,  each  time  with  a 
wild,  restless  story  of  fortunes  to  be  made  or  in  the  making! 

Once  he  came  home  and  stayed  for  a  longer  time  than  usual. 
During  this  stay  he  received  many  letters.  My  grandmother 
noticed  a  furtiveness  in  his  manner  when  he  received  them.  My 
grandmother  noticed  that  her  husband  always  repaired  immediately 
to  the  outhouse  when  he  received  a  letter. 

She  followed  after  him  one  day,  and  found  fragments  of  a  torn 
letter  cast  below  .  .  she  performed  the  disagreeable  task  of  retriev- 
ing the  fragments,  of  laboriously  piecing  them  together  and 
spelling  them  out.  She  procured  a  divorce  as  quietly  as  possible. 
Then  my  grandfather  made  his  final  disappearance.  I  did  not 
see  him  again  till  I  was  quite  grown  up. 

All  support  of  his  numerous  family  ceased.  His  sons  and  daugh- 
ters had  to  go  to  work  while  still  children,  or  marry. 

My  Aunt  Alice  married  a  country  doctor  whom  I  came  to  know 
as  "Uncle  Beck."  My  Uncle  Joe,  who  inherited  my  grandfather's 
business-sense,  with  none  of  his  crookedness,  started  out  as  a  news- 
boy, worked  his  way  up  to  half-proprietorship  in  a  Mornington 
paper  .  .  the  last  I  heard  of  him  he  had  money  invested  in  nearly 
every  enterprise  in  town,  and  had  become  a  substantial  citizen. 

My  father  still  pursued  his  nomadic  way  of  living,  sending,  very 
seldom,  driblets  of  money  to  my  grandmother  for  my  support  .  . 
my  uncle  Jim  went  East  to  work  .  .  of  my  uncle  Landon  I  shall 
tell  you  later  on. 

The  big  house  in  which  my  grandmother,  my  Aunt  Millie,  and  I 
lived  was  looking  rather  seedy  by  this  time.  The  receding  tide 
of  fashion  and  wealth  had  withdrawn  far  off  to  another  section 
of  the  rapidly  growing  city  .  .  and,  below  and  above,  the  Steel 
Mills,  with  their  great,  flaring  furnaces,  rose,  it  seemed,  over  night, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  11 

one  after  one  .  .  and  a  welter  of  strange  people  we  then  called  the 
'*low  Irish"  came  to  work  in  them,  and  our  Mansion  Avenue  be- 
came "Kilkenny  Row.'*  And  a  gang  of  tough  kids  sprang  up 
called  the  "Kilkenny  Cats,"  with  which  my  gang  used  to  fight. 

After  the  "Low  Irish"  came  the  "Dagoes"  .  .  and  after  them 
the  "Hunkies"  .  .  each  wilder  and  more  poverty-stricken  than  the 
former. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

The  Industrial  Panic  of  '95  (it  was  '95,  I  think)  was  on  .  . 
always  very  poor  since  the  breaking  up  of  our  family,  now  at  times 
even  bread  was  scarce  in  the  house. 

I  was  going  to  school,  scrawny  and  freckle-faced  and  ill-nour- 
ished. I  had  a  pet  chicken  that  fortunately  grew  up  to  be  a  hen. 
It  used  to  lay  an  egg  for  me  nearly  every  morning  during  that 
hard  time. 

My  early  remembrances  of  school  are  chiefly  olfactory.  I  didn't 
like  the  dirty  boy  who  sat  next  to  me  and  spit  on  his  slate, 
rubbing  it  clean  with  his  sleeve.  I  loved  the  use  of  my  yellow, 
new  sponge,  especially  after  the  teacher  had  taught  me  all  about 
how  it  had  grown  on  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  where  divers  had  to 
swim  far  down  to  bring  it  up,  slanting  through  the  green  waters. 
But  the  slates  of  most  of  the  boys  stunk  vilely  with  their  spittle. 

I  didn't  like  the  smell  of  the  pig-tailed  little  girls,  either.  There 
was  a  close  soapiness  about  them  that  offended  me.  And  yet  they 
attracted  me.  For  I  liked  them  in  their  funny,  kilt-like,  swinging 
dresses.  I  liked  the  pudginess  of  their  noses,  the  shiny  apple-glow 
of  their  cheeks. 

It  was  wonderful  to  learn  to  make  letters  on  a  slate.  To  learn 
to  put  down  rows  of  figures  and  find  that  one  and  one,  cabalis- 
tically,  made  two,  and  two  and  two,  four! 

It  always  seemed  an  age  to  recess.  And  the  school  day  was  as 
long  as  a  month  is  now. 

We  were  ready  to  laugh  at  anything  .  .  a  grind-organ  in  the 
street,  a  passing  huckster  crying  "potatoes,"  etc. 

I  have  few  distinct  memories  of  my  school  days.  I  never  went 
to  kindergarten.     I  entered  common  school  at  the  age  of  eight. 

My  grandfather,  after  his  hegira  from  Mornington,  left  behind 
his  library   of   travels,  lives   of   famous   American  Statesmen   and 


12  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Business  Men,  and  his  Civil  War  books.  Among  these  books  were 
four  treasure  troves  that  set  my  boy*s  imagination  on  fire.  They 
were  Stanley's  Adventures  in  Africa,  Dr.  Kane's  Book  of  Polar 
Explorations,  Mungo  Park,  and,  most  amazing  of  all,  a  huge, 
sensational  book  called  Savage  Races  of  the  World  .  .  this  title 
was  followed  by  a  score  of  harrowing  and  sensational  sub-titles  in 
rubric.  I  revelled  and  rolled  in  this  book  like  a  colt  let  out  to  first 
pasture.  For  days  and  nights,  summer  and  winter,  I  fought,  hunted, 
was  native  to  all  the  world's  savage  regions  in  turn,  partook  glee- 
fully of  strange  and  barbarous  customs,  naked  and  skin-painted. 
I  pushed  dug-outs  and  canoes  along  tropic  water-ways  where  at 
any  moment  an  enraged  hippopotamus  might  thrust  up  his  snout 
and  overturn  me,  crunching  the  boat  in  two  and  leaving  me  a  prey 
to  crocodiles  .  .  I  killed  birds  of  paradise  with  poison  darts  which 
I  blew  out  of  a  reed  with  my  nostrils.  .  .  I  burned  the  houses  of 
white  settlers  .   .   even  indulged  shudderingly  in  cannibal  feasts. 

The  one  thing  that  pre-eminently  seized  my  imagination  in  Savage 
Races  of  the  World  was  the  frontispiece, — a  naked  black  rush- 
ing full-tilt  through  a  tropical  forest,  his  head  of  hair  on  fire,  a 
huge  feather-duster  of  dishevelled  flame  .  .  somehow  this  appealed 
to  me  as  especially  romantic.  I  dreamed  of  myself  as  that  savage, 
rushing  gloriously  through  a  forest,  naked,  and  crowned  with  fire 
like  some  primitive  sun-god.  It  never  once  occurred  to  me  how  it 
would  hurt  to  have  my  hair  burning! 

•  •••••• 

When  Aunt  Millie  was  taken  down  with  St.  Vitus's  dance,  it  af- 
forded me  endless  amusement.  She  could  hardly  lift  herself  a  drink 
out  of  a  full  dipper  without  spilling  two-thirds  of  the  contents  on 
the  ground. 

Uncle  Beck,  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  country  doctor  who  mar- 
ried Aunt  Alice,  came  driving  in  from  Antonville,  five  miles  away, 
once  or  twice  a  week  to  tend  to  Millie,  free,  as  we  were  too  poor 
to  pay  for  a  doctor.  I  remember  how  Uncle  Beck  caught  me  and 
whipped  me  with  a  switch.  For  I  constantly  teased  Aunt  Millie 
to  make  her  scream  and  cry. 

"Granma,"  I  used  to  call  out,  on  waking  In  the  morning.  .  . 

"Yes,  Johnnie  darling,  what  is  it.'"' 

"Granraa,  yesterday  .  .  in  the  woods  back  of  Babson's  barn,  I 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  13 

killed  three  Indians,  one  after  the  other."  (The  funny  part  of  it 
was  that  I  believed  this,  actually,  as  soon  as  the  words  left  my 
mouth.) 

A  silence.  .  . 

"Granma,  don't  you  believe  me?" 

"Yes,  of  course,  I  believe  you." 

Aunt  Millie  would  strike  in  with — "Ma,  why  do  you  go  on  hu- 
mouring Johnnie  while  he  tells  such  lies?  You  ought  to  give  him 
a  good  whipping." 

"The  poor  little  chap  ain't  got  no  mother!" 

"Poor  little  devil !  If  you  keep  on  encouraging  him  this  way 
he'll  become  one  of  the  greatest  liars  in  the  country." 

A  colloquy  after  this  sort  took  place  more  than  once.  It  gave 
me  indescribable  pleasure  to  narrate  an  absurd  adventure,  believe 
it  myself  in  the  telling  of  it,  and  think  others  believed  me.  Aunt 
Millie's  scorn  stung  me  like  a  nettle,  and  I  hated  her. 

In  many  ways  I  tasted  practical  revenge.  Though  a  grown  girl 
of  nineteen,  she  still  kept  three  or  four  dolls.  And  I  would  steal 
her  dolls,  pull  their  dresses  for  shame  over  their  heads,  and  set 
them  straddle  the  banisters. 

We  took  in  boarders.  We  had  better  food.  It  was  good  to  have 
meat  to  eat  every  day. 

Among  the  boarders  was  a  bridge  builder  named  Elton  Reeves. 
Elton  had  a  pleasant,  sun-burnt  face  and  a  little  choppy  moustache 
beneath  which  his  teeth  glistened  when  he  smiled. 

He  fell,  or  pretended  to  fall,  in  love  with  gaunt,  raw-boned  Millie. 

At  night,  after  his  day's  work,  he  and  Millie  would  sit  silently 
for  hours  in  the  darkened  parlour, — silent,  except  for  an  occasional 
murmur  of  voices.  I  was  curious.  Several  times  I  peeked  in.  But 
all  I  could  see  was  the  form  of  my  tall  aunt  couched  half-moonwise 
in  Elton  Reeve's  lap.  I  used  to  wonder  why  they  sat  so  long  and 
still,  there  in  the  darkness.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

Once  a  grown  girl  of  fourteen  named  Minnie  came  to  visit  a  sweet 
little  girl  named  Martha  Hanson,  whose  consumptive  widower- 
father  rented  two  rooms  from  my  grandmother.  They  put  Minnie 
to  sleep  in  the  same  bed  with  me.  .  . 


14  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

After  a  while  I  ran  out  of  the  bedroom  into  the  parlour  where 
the  courting  was  going  on. 

"Aunt  Millie,  Minnie  won't  let  me  sleep." 

Millie  did  not  answer.     Elton  guffawed  lustily. 

I  returned  to  bed  and  found  Minnie  lying  stiff  and  mute  with  fury. 

Elton  left,  the  bridge-work  brought  to  completion.  He  had  a 
job  waiting  for  him  in  another  part  of  the  country. 

It  hurt  even  my  savage,  young,  vindictive  heart  to  see  Millie 
daily  running  to  the  gate,  full  of  eagerness,  as  the  mail-man 
came.  .  . 

"No,  no  letters  for  you  this  morning,  Millie !" 

Or  more  often  he  would  go  past,  saying  nothing.  And  Millie 
would  weep  bitterly. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  -     • 

I  have  a  vision  of  a  very  old  woman  walking  over  the  top  of  a 
hill.  She  leans  on  a  knobby  cane.  She  smokes  a  corn-cob  pipe. 
Her  face  is  corrugated  with  wrinkles  and  as  tough  as  leather.  She 
comes  out  of  a  high  background  of  sky.  The  wind  whips  her  skirts 
about  her  thin  shanks.      Her  legs  are  like  broomsticks. 

This  is  a  vision  of  my  great-grandmother's  entrance  into  my 
boyhood.  qi\_ 

I  had  often  heard  of  her.  She  had  lived  near  Halton  with  J./ 
Great-aunt  Rachel  for  a  long  time  .  .  and  now,  since  we  were  tak- 
ing in  boarders  and  could  keep  her,  she  was  coming  to  spend  the 
rest  of  her  days  with  us. 

At  first  I  was  afraid  of  this  eerie,  ancient  being.  But  when  she 
dug  out  a  set  of  fish-hooks,  large  and  small,  from  her  tobacco  pouch, 
and  gave  them  to  me,  I  began  to  think  there  might  be  something 
human  in  the  old  lady. 

She  established  her  regular  place  in  a  rocker  by  the  kitchen 
stove.  She  had  already  reached  the  age  of  ninety-five.  But  there 
was  a  constant,  sharp,  youthful  glint  in  her  eye  that  belied  her  age. 

She  chewed  tobacco  vigorously  like  any  backwoodsman  (had 
chewed  it  originally  because  she'd  heard  it  cured  toothache,  then 
had  kept  up  the  habit  because  she  liked  it). 

Her  corncob  pipe — it  was  as  rank  a  thing  as  ditch  digger  ever 
poisoned  the  clean  air  with. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  15 

Granma  Wandon  was  as  spry  as  a  yearling  calf.  She  taught 
me  how  to  drown  out  groundhogs  and  chipmunks  from  their  holes. 
She  went  fishing  with  me  and  taught  me  to  spit  on  the  bait  for 
luck,  or  rub  a  certain  root  on  the  hook,  which  she  said  made  the 
fish  bite  better. 

And  solemnly  that  spring  of  her  arrival,  and  that  following 
summer,  did  we  lay  out  a  fair-sized  garden  and  carefully  plant 
each  kind  of  vegetable  in  just  the  right  time  and  phase  of  the  moon 
and,  however  it  may  be,  her  garden  grew  beyond  the  garden  of 
anyone  else  in  the  neighbourhood. 

The  following  winter — and  her  last  winter  on  earth — was  a  time 
of  wonder  and  marvel  for  me  .  .  sitting  with  her  at  the  red-heated 
kitchen  stove,  I  listened  eagerly  to  her  while  she  related  tales  to  me 
of  old  settlers  in  Pennsylvania  .  .  stories  of  Indians  .  .  ghost 
stories  .  .  she  curdled  my  blood  with  tales  of  catamounts  and 
mountain  lions  crying  like  women  and  babies  in  the  dark,  to  lure 
travellers  where  they  could  pounce  down  from  branches  on  them. 

And  she  told  me  the  story  of  the  gambler  whom  the  Devil  took 
when  he  swore  falsely,  avowing,  "may  the  Devil  take  me  if  I  cheated." 

She  boasted  of  my  pioneer  ancestors  .  .  strapping  six-footers 
in  their  stocking  feet  .  .  men  who  carried  one  hundred  pound  bags 
of  salt  from  Pittsburgh  to  Slippery  Rock  in  a  single  journey. 

T'      'effect  of  these  stories  on  me ? 

led  of  skeleton  hands  that  reached  out  from  the  clothes 
closet  for  me.     Often  at  night  I  woke,  yelling  with  nightmare. 

With  a  curious  touch  of  folk  lore  Granma  Gregory  advised  me 
to  "look  for  the  harness  under  the  bed,  if  it  was  a  nightmare." 
But  she  upbraided  Granma  Wandon,  her  mother,  for  retailing 
me  such  tales. 

''Nonsense,  it'll  do  him  good,  my  sweet  little  Johnnie,"  she 
assured  her  daughter,  knocking  her  corncob  pipe  over  the  coal 
scuttle  like  a  man. 

•  •••••• 

There  was  a  story  of  Granma  Wandon's  that  cut  deep  into  my 
memory.  It  was  the  story  of  the  man  who  died  cursing  God,  and 
who  brought,  by  his  cursing,  the  dancing  of  the  very  flames  of  Hell, 
red-licking  and  serrate,  in  a  hideous  cluster,  like  an  infernal  bed  of 
flowers,  just  outside  the  window,  for  all  around  his  death-bed  to  see! 


16  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

In  the  fall  of  the  next  year  Granma  Wandon  took  sick.  We 
knew  it  was  all  over  for  her.  She  faded  painlessly  into  death.  She 
knew  she  was  going,  said  so  calmly  and  happily.  She  made  Millie 
and  Granma  Gregory  promise  they'd  be  good  to  me.  I  wept  and 
wept.  I  kissed  her  leathery,  leaf-like  hand  with  utter  devotion  .  . 
she  could  hardly  lift  it.  Almost  of  itself  it  sought  my  face  and 
flickered  there  for  a  moment. 

She  seemed  to  be  listening  to  something  far  off. 
"Can't  you  hear  it,  Maggie?"  she  asked  her  daughter. 
"Hear  what,  mother?" 
*'Music  .   .   that  beautiful  music !" 
"Do  you  see  anything,  mother?" 
"Yes  .  .  heaven !" 

Then  the  fine  old  pioneer  soul  passed  on.  I'll  bet  she  still  clings 
grimly  to  an  astral  corncob  pipe  somewhere  in  space. 

A  week  before  she  died,  Aunt  Millie  told  us  she  was  sure  the  end 
was  near.  For  Millie  had  waked  up  in  the  night  and  had  seen  the 
old  lady  come  into  her  room,  reach  under  the  bed,  take  the  pot  forth, 
use  it, — and  glide  silently  upstairs  to  her  room  again. 

Millie  spoke  to  the  figure  and  received  no  answer.  Then,  fright- 
ened, she  knew  she  had  seen  a  "token"  of  Granma  Wandon's  ap- 
proaching death. 

In  the  parlour  stood  the  black  coffin  on  trestles ;  the  door  open, 
for  we  had  a  fear  of  cats  getting  at  the  body, — we  could  glimpse 
the  ominous  black  object  as  we  sat  down  to  breakfast.  And  I  laid 
my  head  on  the  table  and  wept  as  much  because  of  that  sight  as  over 
the  loss  of  my  old  comrade  and  playmate. 

Something  vivid  had  gone  out  of  my  life.  And  for  the  first  time 
I  felt  and  knew  the  actuality  of  death.  Like  a  universe-filling,  soft, 
impalpable  dust  it  slowly  sifted  over  me,  bearing  me  under.  I  saw 
for  the  first  time  into  all  the  full  graves  of  the  world. 

To  my  great-grandmother's  funeral  came  many  distant  relatives 
I  had  never  rested  eye  on  before  .  .  especially  there  came  my  Great- 
aunt  Rachel,  Granma  Gregory's  sister, — a  woman  just  as  sweet- 
natured  as  she,  and  almost  her  twin  even  to  the  blue  rupture  of  a 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  17 

vein  in  the  middle  of  the  lower  lip.  She,  too,  had  a  slightly  pro- 
trusive stomach  over  which  she  had  the  habit  of  folding  her  hard- 
working hands  restfully,  when  she  talked  .  .  and  also  there  came 
with  her  my  Great-uncle  Joshua,  her  husband  .  .  and  my  second 
cousins,  Paul  and  Phoebe,  their  children.  The  other  children,  two 
girls,  were  off  studying  in  a  nurses'  college  .  .  working  their  way 
there. 

After  the  burial  Josh  and  Paul  went  on  back  to  Halton,  where 
they  worked  in  the  Steel  Mills.  They  left  Aunt  Rachel  and  Phoebe 
to  stay  on  and  pay  us  a  visit. 

Paul  and  Josh  were  "puddlers" — when  they  worked  .  .  in  the 
open  furnaces  that  were  in  use  in  those  days  .  .  when  you  saw 
huge,  magnificent  men,  naked  to  the  belt,  whose  muscles  rippled  in 
coils  as  they  toiled  away  in  the  midst  of  the  living  red  of  flowing 
metal. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

Phoebe  was  wild  and  beautiful  in  a  frail  way.  She  wore  a  pea 
green  skirt  and  a  waist  of  filmy,  feminine  texture.  We  instantly 
took  to  each  other.  She  was  always  up  and  off,  skimming  swallow- 
like in  all  directions,  now  this  way,  now  that,  as  if  seeking  for  some 
new  flavour  in  life,  some  excitement  that  had  not  come  to  her  yet. 

We  made  expeditions  together  over  the  country.  She  joined  me 
in  my  imaginary  battles  with  Indians  .  .  my  sanguinary  hunts  for 
big  game.  .  .  It  was  she  who  first  taught  me  to  beg  hand-outs  at 
back  doors — one  day  when  we  went  fishing  together  and  found  our- 
selves a  long  way  off  from  home. 

Once  Phoebe  fell  into  a  millpond  from  a  springboard  .  .  with 
all  her  clothes  on  .  .  we  were  seeing  who  dared  "teeter"  nearest 
the  end.  .  .  I  had  difficulty  in  saving  her.  It  was  by  the  hair,  with 
a  chance  clutch,  that  I  drew  her  ashore. 

The  picture  of  her,  shivering  forlornly  before  the  kitchen  stove! 
She  was  beautiful,  even  in  her  long,  wet,  red-flannel  drawers  that 
came  down  to  her  slim,  white  ankles.  She  was  weeping  over  the 
licking  her  mother  had  given  her. 

"I'm  afraid  your  cousin  Phoebe  will  come  to  no  good  end  some 
day,  if  she  don't  watch  out,"  said  my  grandmother  to  me,  "and  I 
don't  like  you  to  play  with  her  much.   .  .  I'm  going  to  have  Aunt 


18  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Rachel  take  her  home  soon"   .    .   after  a  pause,  "as  sure  as  I  have 
ten  fingers  she'll  grow  up  to  be  a  bad  woman." 

**Granma,  what  is  a  bad  woman  ?" 

•  ••••■• 

Aunt  Rachel  and  Cousin  Phoebe  returned  home.  Uncle  Josh, 
that  slack  old  vagabond  with  his  furtive,  kindly  eye-glances,  came 
for  them  with  a  livery  rig. 

I  think  I  read  every  dime  novel  published,  during  those  years  of 
my  childhood  .  .  across  the  bridge  that  Elton  had  helped  build, 
the  new  bridge  that  spanned  the  Hickory  River,  and  over  the  rail- 
road tracks,  stood  a  news-stand,  that  was  run  by  an  old,  near- 
sighted woman.  As  she  sat  tending  counter  and  knitting,  I  bought 
her  books  .  .  but  for  each  dime  laid  down  before  her,  I  stole  three 
extra  thrillers  from  under  her  very  eye. 

From  my  grandfather's  library  I  dug  up  a  book  on  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  written  by  some  missionary.  In  it  I  found  a  story  of  how 
the  natives  speared  fish  off  the  edges  of  reefs.  Straightway  I  pro- 
cured a  pitchfork. 

I  searched  the  shallows  and  ripples  of  Hickory  River  for  miles 
.   ,  I  followed  Babson's  brook  over  the  hills  nearly  to  its  source. 

One  day,  peering  through  reeds  into  a  shallow  cove,  I  saw  a 
fish-fin  thrust  up  out  of  the  water.     I  crept  cautiously  forward. 

It  was  a  big  fish  that  lay  there.  Trembling  all  over  with  excite- 
ment, I  made  a  mad  thrust.  Then  I  yelled,  and  stamped  on  the 
fish,  getting  all  wet  in  doing  so.  I  beat  its  head  in  with  the  haft 
of  the  fork.  It  rolled  over,  its  white  belly  glinting  in  the  sun.  On 
picking  it  up,  I  was  disappointed.  It  had  been  dead  for  a  long 
time;  had  probably  swam  in  there  to  die  .  .  and  its  gills  were  a 
withered  brown-black  in  colour,  like  a  desiccated  mushroom  .  .  not 
healthy  red. 

But  I  was  not  to  be  frustrated  of  my  glory.  I  tore  the  tell-tale 
gills  out  .  .  then  I  beat  the  fish's  head  to  a  pulp,  and  I  carried  my 
capture  home  and  proudly  strutted  in  at  the  kitchen  door. 

"Look,  Granma,  at  what  a  big  fish  I've  caught." 

"Oh,  Millie,  he's  really  got  one,"  and  Granma  straightened  up 
from  the  wasK-tub.      Millie  came  out  snickering  scornfully. 

"My  Gawd,  Ma,  can't  you  see  it's  been  dead  a  week?" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  19 

"You're  a  liar,  it  ain't!"  I  cried.  And  I  began  to  sob  because 
Aunt  Millie  was  trying  to  push  me  back  into  ignominy  as  I  stood 
at  the  very  threshold  of  glory. 

"Honest-to-God,  it's — fresh — Granma  !"  I  gulped,  "didn't  I  just 
kill  it  with  the  pitchfork?"  Then  I  stopped  crying,  absorbed  en- 
tirely in  the  fine  story  I  was  inventing  of  the  big  fish's  capture  and 
death.  I  stood  aside,  so  to  speak,  amazed  at  myself,  and  proud, 
as  my  tongue  ran  on  as  if  of  its  own  will. 

Even  Aunt  Millie  was  charmed. 

•  •••••  • 

But  she  soon  came  out  from  under  the  spell  with,  "Ma,  Johnnie 
means  well  enough,  but  surely  you  ain't  going  to  feed  that  fish  to 
the  boarders?" 

"Yes,  I  am.     I  believe  in  the  little  fellow." 

"All  right,  Ma  .  .  but  I  won't  eat  a  mouthful  of  it,  and  you'd 
better  drop  a  note  right  away  for  Uncle  Beck  to  drive  in,  so's  he'll 
be  here  on  time  for  the  cases  of  poison  that  are  sure  to  develop." 

Cleaned  and  baked,  the  fish  looked  good,  dripping  with  sauce 
and  basted  to  an  appetizing  brown. 

As  I  drew  my  chair  up  to  the  table  and  a  smoking  portion  was 
heaped  on  my  plate.  Aunt  Millie  watched  me  with  bright,  malicious 
eyes. 

"Granma,  I  want  another  cup  o'  coffee,"  I  delayed. 

But  the  big,  fine,  grey-haired  mill  boss,  our  star  boarder,  who 
liked  me  because  I  always  listened  to  his  stories — he  sailed  into  his 
helping  nose-first.  That  gave  me  courage  and  I  ate,  too  .  .  and 
we  all  ate. 

"Say,  but  this  fish  is  good!     Where  did  it  come  from?" 

"The  kid  here  caught  it." 

"Never  tasted  better  in  my  life." 

None  of  us  were  ever  any  the  worse  for  our  rotten  fish.  And  I 
was  vindicated,  believed  in,  even  by  Aunt  Millie. 

•  •••••• 

Summer  vacation  again,  after  a  winter  and  spring's  weary  grind 
in  school. 

Aunt  Rachel  wrote  to  Granma  that  they  would  be  glad  to  have 
me  come  over  to  Halton  for  a  visit. 


20  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Granma  let  me,  after  I  had  pleaded  for  a  long  while, — but  it  was 
with  great  reluctance,  warning  me  of  Phoebe. 

Aunt  Rachel,  Uncle  Joshua,  Cousin  Phoebe  and  cousin  Paul  lived 
in  a  big,  square  barn-like  structure.  Its  unpainted,  barren  bulk 
sat  uneasily  on  top  of  a  bare  hill  where  the  clay  lay  so  close  to  the 
top-soil  that  in  wet  weather  you  could  hardly  labour  up  the  pre- 
cipitous path  that  led  to  their  house,  it  was  so  slippery. 

As  I  floundered  upward  in  the  late  spring  rain,  gaining  the  bare 
summit  under  the  drizzly  sky,  a  rush  of  dogs  met  me.  They  leaped 
and  slavered  and  jumped  and  flopped  and  tumbled  and  whined  all 
about  me  and  over  me  .  .  ten  of  them  .  .  hound  dogs  with  flop-ears 
and  small,  red-rimmed  eyes  .  .  skinny  creatures  .  .  there  was  no 
danger  from  them,  but  they  planted  their  mud-sticky  paws  every- 
where in  a  frenzy  of  welcome. 

*'A  hound  ain't  got  no  sense  onless  he's  a-huntin',"  drawled  Paul, 
as  his  great  boot  caught  them  dextrously  under  their  bellies  and 
lifted  them  gently,  assiduously,  severall}',  in  diff'erent  directions 
from  me.   .   . 

Aunt  Rachel's  face,  ineffably  ignorant  and  ineffably  sweet,  lit  up 
with  a  smile  of  welcome.      She  met  me  in  the  doorway,  kissed  me. 

And  she  made  me  a  great  batch  of  pancakes  to  eat,  with  bacon 
dripping  and  New  Orleans  molasses  .   .  but  first 

"Josh,  where  on  earth  is  them  carpet  slippers  o'  yourn?" 

Josh  yawned.  He  knocked  the  tobacco  out  of  his  pipe  leisurely 
.  .  then,  silent,  he  began  scraping  the  black,  foul  inside  of  the 
bowl  .  .  then  at  last  he  drawled. 

"Don't  know,  Ma !" 

But  Phoebe  knew,  and  soon,  a  mile  too  wide,  the  carpet  slippers 
hung  on  my  feet,  while  my  shoes  were  drying  in  the  oven  and  sending 
out  that  peculiar,  close  smell  that  wet  leather  emanates  when  sub- 
jected to  heat.  Also,  I  put  on  Phoebe's  pea-green  cotton  skirt, 
while  my  knee  britches  hung  behind  the  stove,  drying.  The  men 
chaffed  me. 

In  the  industrial  Middle  West  of  those  days,  when  the  steel  kings' 
fortunes  were  in  bloom  of  growth,  these  distantly  related  kinsfolk 
of  mine  still  lived  the  precarious  life  of  pioneer  days.  Through 
the  bare  boards  of  the  uneven  floor  whistled  the  wind.     Here  and 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  21 

there  lay  a  sparse,  grey,  homemade  rag  rug.  And  here  and  there 
a  window  pane,  broken,  had  not  been  replaced.  And  an  old  pair 
of  pants,  a  ragged  shirt,  a  worn  out  skirt  stuffed  in,  kept  out  the 
draft, — of  which  everybody  but  Phoebe  seemed  mortally  afraid. 
Incidentally  these  window-stuffings  kept  out  much  of  the  daylight. 
Aunt  Rachel,  near-sighted,  with  her  rather  pathetic  stoop,  was 
ceaselessly  sewing,  knitting,  scrubbing,  washing,  and  cooking.  She 
took  care  of  her  "two  men"  as  she  phrased  it  proudly — her  husband 
and  her  great-bodied  son — as  if  they  were  helpless  children. 

''We're  going  a-huntin'  to-day,  Johnny, — wan'  ter  come  along .P" 

"Sure !" 

"Wall,  git  ready,  then !" 

But  first  Paul  fed  the  hounds  out  in  the  yard  .  .  huge  slabs  of 
white  bread  spread  generously  with  lard.  This  was  all  they  ever  got, 
except  the  scraps  from  the  table,  which  were  few.  They  made  a 
loud,  slathering  noise,  gulping  and  bolting  their  food. 

But  we  started  off  without  the  hounds. 

"Ain't  you  going  to  take  the  dogs  along?" 

"Nope." 

"Why  not — ain't  we  going  to  hunt  rabbits .?" 

"Yep." 

"Then  why  not  take  them.?" 

"Put  your  hand  in  my  right  hand  pocket  an'  find  out!" 

I  stuck  my  hand  down,  and  it  was  given  a  vicious  bite  by  a  white, 
pink-eyed  ferret  Paul  was  carrying  there.  I  yelled  with  pain  and 
surprise.  I  pulled  my  hand  up  in  the  air,  the  ferret  hanging  to  a 
finger.  The  ferret  dropped  to  the  ground.  Paul  stooped  and 
picked  it  up,  guffawing.  It  didn't  bite  him.  It  knew  and  feared 
him.     That  was  his  idea  of  a  joke,  the  trick  he  played  on  me ! 

"Yew  might  git  blood-pisen  from  that  bite !"  teased  Josh,  to  scare 
me.  But  I  remained  unscared.  I  sucked  the  blood  from  the  tiny 
punctures,  feeling  secure,  after  I  had  done  it.  I  remembered  how 
Queen  Eleanore  had  saved  the  life  of  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  in  the 
Holy  Land,  when  he  had  been  bitten  by  an  adder,  by  sucking  out 
the  venom.     I  enjoyed  the  thrill  of  a  repeated  historic  act. 

"If  we  got  ketched  we'd  be  put  in  jail  fer  this!"  remarked  Josh 
with  that  sly,  slow  smile  of  his;  "it  ain't  the  proper  season  to  hunt 


22  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

rabbits  in,  an'  it's  agin  the  law,  in  season  or  out,  to  hunt  'em  with 
ferrets,"  and  he  chuckled  with  relish  over  the  outlawry  of  it. 

We  came  to  a  hole  under  a  hollow  tree.  Paul  let  the  ferret  go 
down,  giving  him  a  preliminary  smack. 

"Mind  you,  Jim, — God  damn  you, — don't  you  stay  down  that 
hole  too  long." 

"Think  he  understands  you.'"' 

**In  course  he  does:  jest  the  same  es  you  do." 

**And  why  would  Jim  stay  down.'"' 

"He  might  corner  the  rabbit,  kill  him,  an'  stay  to  suck  his  blood 
,  .  but  Jim  knows  me.  .  .  I've  given  him  many  's  the  ungodly  whip- 
ping for  playing  me  that  trick  .  .  but  he's  always  so  greedy  and 
hongry  that  sometimes  the  little  beggar  fergits." 

"And  then  how  do  you  get  him  out  again?" 

**Jest  set  an'  wait  till  he  comes  out  .  .  which  he  must  do,  some- 
time .  .  an'  then  you  kin  jest  bet  I  give  it  to  him." 

We  waited  a  long  time. 

"Damn  Jim,  he's  up  to  his  old  tricks  again,  I'll  bet,"  swore  Josh, 
shifting  his  face-deforming  quid  of  tobacco  from  one  protuberant 
cheek  to  the  other,  meditatively.  .  . 

The  ferret  appeared,  or,  rather,  a  big  grey  rabbit  .  .  squealing 
with  terror  .  .  coming  up  backward  .  .  the  ferret  clinging  angrily 
to  his  nose  .  .  and  tugging  like  a  playing  pup. 

Paul  took  Jim  off  and  put  him  back  in  his  pocket  .  .  he  had  to 
smack  him  smartly  to  make  him  let  go —  "hongry  little  devil!"  he 
remarked  fondly. 

A  crack  of  the  hand,  brought  down  edgewise,  broke  the  rabbit's 
neck,  and  he  was  thrust  into  a  bag  which  Josh  carried  slung  over 
his  shoulder. 

We  caught  fifteen  rabbits  that  afternoon. 

We  had  a  big  rabbit  stew  for  supper.  Afterward  the  two  men 
sat  about  in  their  socks,  chairs  tilted  back,  sucking  their  teeth  and 
picking  them  with  broom  straws  .  .  and  they  told  yarns  of  dogs, 
and  hunting,  and  fishing,  till  bed-time. 

The  morning  sun  shone  brightly  over  me  through  three  panes  of 
glass  in  the  window,  the  fourth  of  which  was  stopped  up  with  an 
old  petticoat. 

I  woke  with  Phoebe's  warm  kiss  on  my  mouth.     We  had  slept 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  23 

together,  for  the  older  folks  considered  us  too  young  for  it  to  make 
anj  difference.  We  lay  side  by  side  all  night  .  .  and  like  a  little 
man  and  woman  we  lay  together,  talking,  in  the  morning. 

We  could  smell  the  cooking  of  eggs  and  bacon  below  .  .  an  early 
breakfast  for  Paul,  for  he  had  been  taken  by  a  whim  that  he  must 
work  in  the  mine  over  the  hill  for  a  few  weeks  in  order  to  earn  some 
money  .  .  for  he  was  a  miner,  as  well  as  a  puddler  in  the  mills  .  .  he 
worked  in  coal  mines  privately  run,  not  yet  taken  into  the  trust. 
He  often  had  to  lie  on  his  side  in  a  shallow  place,  working  the  coal 
loose  with  his  pick — where  the  roof  was  so  close  he  couldn't  sit  up 
straight.  .  . 

"What  shall  we  do  to-day?"  asked  Phoebe  of  me,  as  we  lay  there, 
side  by  side,  "I  say  let's  go  swimming?" 

"You  and  me  together?"  I  demurred. 

*'In  course!" 

**And  you  a  girl?" 

*'Can't  I  swim  jest  as  well  as  you  can?" 

**Phoebe,  git  up,  you  lazy-bones,"  called  Aunt  Rachel,  from  the 
bottom  of  the  stairs. 

"All  right,  Ma!" 

** Johnnie,  you  git  up,  too !" 

*'Coming  down  right  now,  Aunt  Rachel !" 

"Hurry  up,  or  your  breakfast'll  git  cold  .  .  the  idea  of  you  children 
laying  in  bed  like  this  .  .  what  on  earth  are  you  doing  up  there, 
talking  and  talking?    I  kin  hear  you  buzzing  away  clear  down  here !" 

I  had  been  rapt  in  telling  Phoebe  how,  when  I  grew  to  be  a  man, 
I  was  going  to  become  a  great  adventurer,  traveller,  explorer. 

Phoebe  sat  up  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  lazily  stretching  for  a 
moment,  as  a  pretty  bird  stretches  its  leg  along  its  wing.  Then, 
her  slim,  nubile  body  outlined  sharply  in  the  brilliant  day,  she  stood 
up,  slipped  off  her  flannel  nightgown  with  a  natural,  unaffected 
movement,  and  stood  naked  before  me. 

It  was  a  custom  of  mine  to  swing  my  feet  as  I  ate;  "just  like  a 
little  calf  wags  its  tail  when  it  sucks  its  mother's  tit,"  my  grand- 
mother would  say.  I  swung  my  feet  vigorously  that  morning,  but  did 
not  eat  noisily,  as  my  uncles,  all  my  male  relatives,  in  fact,  did.  I 
never  made  a  noise  when  I  ate.     I  handled  my  food  delicately  by 


24  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

instinct.  If  I  found  a  fly  in  anything  it  generally  made  me  sick 
to  my  stomach. 

Feeling  warm,  I  suppose,  in  her  heart  toward  me,  because  I 
was  different  in  my  ways,  and  frail-looking,  and  spoke  a  sort  of 
book-English  and  not  the  lingua  franca  that  obtained  as  speech  in 
the  Middle  West,  my  Aunt  Rachel  heaped  my  plate  with  griddle 
cakes,  which  she  made  specially  for  me. 

"You're  goin'  to  be  diff'rent  from  the  rest,  the  way  you  read 
books  and  newspapers,"  she  remarked  half-reverentially. 

A  foamy  bend  in  a  racing  brook  where  an  elbow  of  rock  made 
a  swirling  pool  about  four-foot  deep.    Phoebe  took  me  there. 

We  undressed. 

How  smooth-bodied  she  was,  how  different  from  me!  I  studied 
her  with  abashed,  veiled  glances.  The  way  she  wound  her  hair  on 
the  top  of  her  head,  to  put  it  out  of  the  way,  made  her  look  like 
a  woman  in  miniature. 

She  dove  first,  like  a  water-rat.    I  followed  on  her  heels. 

We  both  shot  to  the  surface  immediately.  For  all  the  warmth 
of  the  day,  the  water  was  deceptively  icy.  We  crawled  out.  We 
lay  on  the  bank,  in  the  good  sun,  gasping.  .  . 

As  we  lay  there,  I  spoke  to  her  of  her  difference  .  .  a  thing  which 
was  for  the  first  time  brought  home  to  me  in  clear  eyesight. 

Phoebe  proceeded  to  blaze  her  way  into  my  imagination  with 
quaint,  direct,  explanatory  talk  .  .  things  she  had  picked  up  God 
knows  where  .  .  grotesque  details  .  .  Rabelaisan  concentrations  on 
seldom-expressed  particulars.  .  . 

I  learned  many  things  at  once  from  Phoebe  .  .  twisted  and 
childish,  but  at  least  more  fundamental  than  the  silly  stories  about 
storks  and  rabbits  that  brought  babies  down  chimneys,  or  hid  them 
in  hollow  stumps  .  .  about  benevolent  doctors,  who,  when  desired 
by  the  mothers  and  fathers,  brought  additions  to  the  family,  from 
nowhere!  .  . 

The  house-cat  .  .  kittens  and  the  way  they  came  .  .  surely  I  knew, 
but  had  not  lifted  the  analogy  up  the  scale.  .  . 

A  furtive  hand  touched  mine,  interwove  itself,  finger  with  thrilling 
finger  .  .  close  together,  we  laughed  into  each  other's  eyes,  over-joyed 
that  we  knew  more  than  our  elders  thought  we  knew.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  25 

Girls,  just  at  the  gate  of  adolescence,  possess  a  directness  of 
purpose  which,  afterwards,  is  looked  upon  as  a  distinct,  masculine 
prerogative.  .  . 

Phoebe  drew  closer  to  me,  pressing  against  me  .  .  but  a  fiercei 
battling  reluctance  rose  in  my  breast.  .  . 

She  was  astonished,  stunned  by  my  negation. 

Silently  I  dressed, — she,  with  a  sullen  pout  on  her  fresh,  childish 
mouth. 

"You  fool !  I  hate  you !  You're  no  damn  good !"  she  cried 
passionately. 

With  a  cruel  pleasure  in  the  action,  I  beat  her  on  the  back.  She 
began  to  sob. 

Then  we  walked  on  a  space.  And  we  sat  down  together  on  the 
crest  of  a  hill.  My  mood  changed,  and  I  held  her  close  to  me, 
with  one  arm  flung  about  her,  till  she  quietened  down  from  her 
sobbing.     I  was  full  of  a  power  I  had  never  known  before. 

I  have  told  of  the  big,  double  house  my  grandmother  had  for 
renting,  and  how  she  might  have  made  a  good  living  renting  it  out, 
if  she  had  used  a  little  business  sense  .  .  but  now  she  let  the  whole 
of  it  to  a  caravan  of  gypsies  for  their  winter  quarters, — who, 
instead  of  paying  rent,  actually  held  her  and  Millie  in  their  debt 
by  reading  their  palms,  sometimes  twice  a  day  ,  .  I  think  it  was 
my  Uncle  Joe  who  at  last  ousted  them.  .  . 

When  I  came  back  from  Aunt  Rachel's  I  found  a  voluble,  fat, 
dirty,  old,  yellow-haired  tramp  established  in  the  ground  floor  of 
the  same  house.  He  had,  in  the  first  place,  come  to  our  back 
door  to  beg  a  hand-out.  And,  sitting  on  the  doorstep  and  eating, 
and  drinking  coffee,  he  had  persuaded  my  grandmother  that  if 
she  would  give  him  a  place  to  locate  on  credit  he  knew  a  way  to 
clear  a  whole  lot  of  money.  His  project  for  making  money  was 
the  seHing  of  home-made  hominy  to  the  restaurants  up  in  town. 

I  found  him  squatted  on  the  bare  floor,  with  no  furniture  in  the 
room.  He  had  a  couple  of  dingy  wash-boilers  which  he  had  picked 
up  from  the  big  garbage-dump  near  the  race-track. 


26  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Day  in,  day  out,  I  spent  my  time  with  this  tramp,  listening  to  his 
stories  of  the  pleasures  and  adventures  of  tramp-life. 

I  see  him  still,  wiping  his  nose  on  his  ragged  coat-sleeve  as  he 
vociferates.  .  . 

When  one  day  he  disappeared,  leaving  boilers,  hominy  and  all, 
behind,  I  missed  his  yarns  as  much  as  my  grandmother  missed  her 
unpaid  rent. 

It  appears  that  at  this  time  my  grandfather  had  a  manufac- 
turing plant  for  the  terra  cotta  invention  he  had  stolen  from  his 
comrade-in-arms,  in  Virginia  somewhere,  and  that,  during  all  these 
years,  he  had  had  Landon  working  with  him, — and  now  word  had 
come  to  us  that  Landon  was  leaving  for  Mornington  again. 

My  grandmother  was  mad  about  him,  her  youngest  .  .  always 
spoke  of  him  as  "her  baby"  .  .  informed  me  again  and  again  that 
he  was  the  most  accomplished,  the  handsomest  man  the  Gregory 
family  had  ever  produced. 

Landon  arrived.  He  walked  up  to  the  front  porch  from  the 
road.  He  came  in  with  a  long,  free  stride  .  .  he  gave  an  eager, 
boyish  laugh  .  .  he  plumped  down  his  big,  bulged-to-bursting  grip 
with  a  bang. 

"Hello,  Ma!  .  .  hello,  Millie!  .  .  well,  well,  so  this  is  Duncan's 
kid?  .  .  how  big  he's  grown!" 

Landon's  fine,  even,  white  teeth  gleamed  a  smile  at  me. 

Granma  couldn't  say  a  word  .  .  she  just  looked  at  him  .  .  and 
looked  at  him  ,  .  and  looked  at  him  .  .  after  a  long  while  she  began 
saying  his  name  over  and  over  again.  .  . 

"Landon,  Landon,  Landon," — holding  him  close. 

Landon  began  living  with  us  regularly  as  one  of  the  family.  He 
went  to  work  in  the  steel  mills,  and  was  energetic  and  tireless  when 
he  worked,  which  he  did,  enough  to  pay  his  way  and  not  be  a  burden 
on  others.     He  performed  the  hardest  kinds  of  labour  in  the  mills. 

But  often  he  laid  off  for  long  stretches  at  a  time  and  travelled 
about  with  a  wild  gang  of  young  men  and  women,  attending  dances, 
drinking,  gambling. 

Nothing  seemed  to  hurt  him,  he  was  so  strong. 

At  most  of  the  drinking  bouts,  where  the  object  was  to  see  who 
could  take  down  the  most  beer,  Landon  would  win  by  drinking  all 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  27 

he  could  hold,  then  stepping  outside  on  another  pretext  .  .  where 
h,«  wovdd  push  his  finger  down  his  throat  and  spout  out  all  he  had 
drunk.     Then  he  would  go  back  and  drink  more. 

Sunday  afternoons  were  the  big  gambling  and  card-playing  times 
in  our  semi-rural  neighbourhood. 

The  "boys"  spent  the  day  till  dusk  in  the  woods  back  of  Babson's 
Hill.  They  drank  and  played  cards.  Landon  taught  me  every 
card  game  there  was. 

He  could  play  the  mouth-organ  famously,  too  .  .  and  the  guitar 
and  banjo.  And  he  had  a  good  strong  voice  with  a  rollick  in  it. 
And  he  was  also  a  great  mimic  .  .  one  of  his  stunts  he  called  "the 
barnyard,"  in  which  he  imitated  with  astonishing  likeness  the  sounds 
every  farm-animal  or  bird  makes  .  .  and  by  drumming  on  his  guitar 
as  he  played,  and  by  the  energetic  use  of  his  mouth-organ  at  the 
same  time,  he  could  also  make  j^ou  think  a  circus  band  was  swinging 
up  the  street,  with  clowns  and  camels  and  elephants. 

His  great  fault  was  that  he  must  have  someone  to  bully  and 
domineer.  And  he  began  picking  on  me,  trying  to  force  me  to 
model  my  life  on  his  pattern  of  what  he  thought  it  should  be. 

One  day  I  saw  him  eating  raw  steak  with  vinegar.  I  told  him 
it  made  me  sick  to  see  it. 

"Well,  you'll  have  to  eat  some,  too,  for  saying  that."  And  he 
chased  me  around  and  'round  the  table  and  room  till  he  caught  me. 
He  held  me,  while  I  kicked  and  protested.  He  compelled  me,  by 
forcing  his  finger  and  thumb  painfully  against  my  jaws,  to  open 
my  mouth  and  eat.     He  struck  me  to  make  me  swallow. 

Everything  I  didn't  want  to  do  he  made  me  do  .  .  he  took  to 
beating  me  on  every  pretext.  When  my  grandmother  protested,  he 
said  he  was  only  educating  me  the  way  I  should  go  .  .  that  I  had 
been  let  run  wild  too  long  without  a  mastering  hand,  and  with  only 
women  in  the  house.     He  must  make  a  man  out  of  me.   .   . 

My  reading  meant  more  to  me  than  anything  else.  I  was  never 
so  happy  as  when  I  was  sitting  humped  up  over  a  book,  in  some 
obscure  corner  of  the  house,  where  Uncle  Landon,  now  grown  the 
incarnate  demon  of  my  life,  could  not  find  me. 

It  was  a  trick  of  his,  when  he  surprised  me  stooping  over  a  book, 
to  hit  me  a  terrific  thwack  between  the  shoulder-blades,  a  blow 
that  made  my  backbone  tingle  with  pain. 


28  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Set  up  straight !  Do  you  want  to  be  a  hump-back  when  you 
grow  big?" 

His  pursuit  drove  me  from  corner  to  corner,  till  I  lost  my 
mischievous  boldness  and  began  to  act  timid  and  fearful. 

Whenever  I  failed  to  obey  Granma,  that  was  his  opportunity. 
(Millie  would  cry  triumphantly,  "Now  you  have  someone  to  make 
you  be  good !")  The  veins  on  his  handsome,  curly  forehead  would 
swell  with  delight,  as  he  caught  me  and  whipped  me  .  .  till  Granma 
would  step  in  and  make  him  stop  .  .  but  often  he  would  over-rule  i| 
her,  and  keep  it  up  till  his  right  arm  was  actually  tired.  And  he 
would  leave  me  to  crawl  off,  sobbing  dry  sobs,  incapable  of  more 
tears. 

A  black  hatred  of  him  began  to  gnaw  at  my  heart  .  .  I  dreamed 
still  of  what  I  would  do  when  I  had  grown  to  be  a  man  .  .  but  now 
it  was  not  any  more  to  be  a  great  traveller  or  explorer,  but  to  grow 
into  a  strong  man  and  kill  my  uncle,  first  putting  him  to  some  savage 
form  of  torture  .  .  torture  that  would  last  a  long,  long  while. 

He  would  often  see  it  in  my  eyes. 

*'Don't  you  look  at  me  that  way !"  with  a  swipe  of  the  hand. 

Out  in  the  woods  I  caught  a  dozen  big  yellow  spiders,  the  kind  that 
make  pretty  silver  traceries,  like  handwriting  with  a  flourish — on 
their  morning  webs. 

I  brought  these  spiders  home  in  a  tin  can  and  transferred  them 
to  some  empty  fruit  jars  in  the  cellar,  keeping  them  for  some  boy- 
ish reason  or  other,  in  pairs,  and  putting  in  flies  for  them. 

Aunt  Millie  came  upon  them  and  set  up  a  scream  that  brought 
Uncle  "Lan,"  as  we  called  him,  down  to  see  what  was  the  matter.   .   . 

I  took  my  beating  in  silence.  I  would  no  longer  beg  and  plead  for 
mercy.  After  he  had  finished,  I  lay  across  the  sloping  cellar  door, 
lumpish  and  still,  inwardly  a  shaking  jelly  of  horror. 

I  was  wanting  to  die  .  .  these  successive  humiliations  seemed  too 
great  to  live  through. 

The  grey  light  of  morning  filtering  in. 
Lan  stood  over  my  bed. 

" — want  to  go  hunting  with  me  to-day.?  .  .  shootin' blackbirds.?" 
"Yes,  Uncle  Lan,"  I  assented,  my  mind  divided  between  fear  of  him 
and  eagerness  to  go. 


'  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  29 

In  the  kitchen  we  ate  some  fried  eggs  and  drank  our  coffee  in 
silence.  Then  we  trudged  on  through  the  dew-wet  fields,  drenched 
to  the  knees  as  if  having  waded  through  a  brook. 

Lan  bore  his  double-barrelled  shotgun  over  his  shoulder.  He  shot 
into  a  tree-top  full  of  bickering  blackbirds  and  brought  three  down, 
torn,  flopping,  bleeding.  He  thrust  them  into  his  sack,  which 
reddened  through,  and  we  went  on  .  .  still  in  silence.  The  silence 
began  to  make  me  tremble  but  I  was  glad,  anyhow,  that  I  had  gone 
with  him.  I  conjectured  that  he  had  brought  me  a-field  to  give  me 
a  final  whipping — "to  teach  me  to  mind  Granma." 

" — had  to  bring  you  out  here  .  .  the  women  are  too  chicken- 
hearted — they  stop  me  too  soon.  .  . 

" — Pity  your  pa's  away  .  .  don't  do  to  leave  a  kid  alone  with 
women  folks  .  .  they  don't  make  him  walk  the  chalk  enough !" 

It  was  about  an  hour  after  sunrise.  We  had  come  to  an  open 
field  among  trees.     Lan  set  down  his  gun  against  a  tree-trunk. 

" — needn't  make  to  run.  .  .  I  can  catch  you,  no  matter  how 
fast  you  go." 

He  cut  a  heavy  stick  from  a  hickory. 

"Come  on  and  take  your  medicine.  .  .  I'm  goin'  away  to-morrow 
to  Halton,  and  I  want  to  leave  you  something  to  remember  me  by — 
so  that  you'll  obey  Ma  and  Millie  while  I'm  gone.  If  you  don't, 
when  I  come  back,  you'll  catch  it  all  over  again." 

My  heart  was  going  like  a  steam  engine.  At  the  last  moment  I 
started  to  run,  my  legs  sinking  beneath  me.  He  was  upon  me  with 
my  first  few  steps,  and  had  me  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  and  brought 
down  the  cudgel  over  me. 

Then  an  amazing  thing  happened  inside  me.  It  seemed  that  the 
blows  were  descending  on  someone  else,  not  me.  The  pain  of  them 
was  a  dull,  far-away  thing.  Weak,  fragile  child  that  I  was  (known 
among  the  other  children  as  "Skinny  Gregory"  and  "Spider-Legs") 
a  man's  slow  fury  was  kindling  in  me  .  .  let  Lan  beat  me  for  a  year. 
It  didn't  matter.     When  I  grew  up  I  would  kill  him  for  this. 

I  began  to  curse  boldly  at  him,  calling  him  by  all  the  obscene 
terms  I  had  ever  learned  or  heard.  This,  and  the  astounding  fact 
that  I  no  longer  squirmed  nor  cried  out,  but  physically  yielded  to 
him,  as  limp  as  an  empty  sack,  brought  him  to  a  puzzled  stop.  But 
he  sent  me  an  extra  blow  for  good  measure  as  he  flung  me  aside. 
That  blow  rattled  about  my  head,  missing  my  shoulders  at  which 


30  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

it  had  been  aimed.     I  saw  a  shower  of  hot  sparks  soaring  upward 
into  a  black  void. 

I  woke  with  water  trickling  down  my  face  and  all  over  me.  I 
heard,  far  off,  my  uncle's  voice  calling,  cajoling,  coaxing,  with  great 
fright  sounding  through  it.  .  . 

"Johnnie,  Johnnie  .  .  I'm  so  sorry  .  .  Johnnie,  only  speak  to 
me!"  He  was  behaving  exactly  like  Aunt  Millie  when  she  had  St. 
Vitus'  dance. 

He  began  tending  me  gently  like  a  woman.  He  built  a  fire  and 
made  some  coffee  over  it — ^he  had  brought  coffee  and  some  lunch. 
I  crouched  white  and  still,  saying  not  a  word. 

Landon  squatted  with  his  back  turned,  watching  the  coffee.  His 
shotgun,  leaning  against  the  tree-trunk,  caught  my  eye.  I  crept 
toward  that  shotgun.  I  trembled  with  anticipatory  pleasure.  God, 
but  now  I  would  pay  him  back!  .  .  . 

But  it  was  too  heavy.  I  had  struggled  and  brought  it  up,  how- 
ever, half  to  my  shoulder,  when  that  uncanny  instinct  that  some- 
times comes  to  people  in  mortal  danger,  came  to  Uncle  Lan.  He 
looked  about. 

He  went  as  pale  as  a  sheet  of  paper. 

" — God,  Johnnie!"  he  almost  screamed  my  name. 

I  dropped  the  gun  in  the  grass,  sullenly,  never  speaking. 

*' Johnnie,  were  you — were  you?"  he  faltered,  unnerved. 

"Yes,  I  was  going  to  give  you  both  barrels  .  .  and  I'm  sorry  I 
didn't." 

All  his  desire  to  whip  me  had  gone  up  like  smoke. 

"Yes,  and  I'll  tell  you  what,  you  big,  dirty  ,  I'll  kill  you 

yet,  when  I  grow  big." 


That  night  I  fainted  at  supper.  When  Granma  put  me  to  bed 
she  saw  how  bruised  and  wealed  I  was  all  over  .  .  for  the  first  time 
she  went  after  Uncle  Lan — turned  into  a  furious  thing. 

•  •••••• 

Shortly  after,  I  was  taken  sick  with  typhoid  fever.  They  used 
the  starvation  cure  for  it,  in  those  days.  When  they  began  to  give 
me  solid  food,  I  chased  single  grains  of  rice  that  fell  out  of  the 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  31 

plate,  about  the  quilt,  just  as  a  jeweller  would  pearls,  if  a  necklace 
of  them  broke. 


With  my  recovery  came  news,  after  many  days,  of  my  father. 

The  Hunkies  were  pushing  out  the  Irish  from  the  mills — cheaper 
labour.  My  grandmother  could  not  afford  to  board  the  Hunkies, 
they  lived  so  cheaply.  Renewed  poverty  was  breaking  our  house- 
hold up. 

My  grandmother  was  about  to  begin  her  living  about  from  house 
to  house  with  her  married  sons  and  daughters. 

My  father  was  sending  for  me  to  come  East.  He  had  a  good  job 
there  in  the  Composite  Works  at  Haberford.  He  was  at  last  able  to 
take  care  of  his  son — his  only  child. 

•  «••••• 

My  grandmother  and  my  aunt  Millie  took  me  to  the  railroad 
station.  I  tried  to  be  brave  and  not  cry.  I  succeeded,  till  the 
train  began  to  pull  out.     Then  I  cried  very  much. 

The  face  of  my  grandmother  pulled  awry  with  grief  and  flowing 
tears.     Aunt  Millie  wept,  too. 

No,  I  wouldn't  leave  them.  I  would  stay  with  them,  work  till  I 
was  rich  and  prosperous,  never  marry,  give  all  my  life  to  taking 
care  of  them,  to  saving  them  from  the  bitter  grinding  poverty  we  had 
shared  together. 

I  ran  into  the  vestibule.  But  the  train  was  gathering  speed  so 
rapidly  that  I  did  not  dare  jump  off. 

I  took  my  seat  again.     Soon  my  tears  dried. 

The  trees  flapped  by.  The  telegraph  poles  danced  off  in  irregu- 
lar lines.  I  became  acquainted  with  my  fellow  passengers.  I  was 
happy. 

I  made  romance  out  of  every  red  and  green  lamp  in  the  railroad 
yards  we  passed  through,  out  of  the  dingy  little  restaurants  in 
which  I  ate.  .  . 

The  mysterious  swaying  to  and  fro  of  the  curtains  in  the  sleeper 
thrilled  me,  as  I  looked  out  from  my  narrow  berth. 

In  the  smoker  I  listened  till  late  to  the  talk  of  the  drummers 
who  clenched  big  black  cigars  between  their  teeth,  or  slender  Pitts- 
burgh stogies,  expertly  flicking  off  the  grey  ash  with  their  little 
fingers,  as  they  yarned. 


32  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  wore  a  tag  on  my  coat  lapel  with  my  name  and  destination 
written  on  it.  My  grandmother  had  put  it  there  in  a  painful, 
scrawling  hand. 

The  swing  out  over  wide,  salt-bitten  marshes,  the  Jersey  marshes 
grey  and  smoky  before  dawn !  .  .  then,  far  off,  on  the  horizon  line, 
New  York,  serrate,  mountainous,  going  upward  great  and  shining 
in  the  still  dawn ! 

•  •••••• 

Beneath  a  high,  vast,  clamorous  roof  of  glass.  .  . 
As  I  stepped  down  to  the  platform  my  father  met  me. 
I  knew  him  instantly  though  it  had  been  years  since  I  had  seen 
him. 

My  father  whisked  me  once  more  across  the  long  Jersey  marshes. 
To  Haberford.  There,  on  the  edge  of  the  town,  composed  of  a  mul- 
titude of  stone-built,  separate,  tin-roofed  houses,  stood  the  Com- 
posite Works.  My  father  was  foreman  of  the  drying  department, 
in  which  the  highly  inflammable  sheets  of  composite  were  hung  to 
dry.  .  . 

My  father  rented  a  large,  front  room,  with  a  closet  for  clothes, 
of  a  commuting  feed  merchant  named  Jenkins  .  .  whose  house  stood 
three  or  four  blocks  distant  from  the  works. 

So  we,  my  father  and  I,  lived  in  that  one  room.  But  I  had  it  to 
myself  most  of  the  time,  excepting  at  night,  when  we  shared  the  big 
double  bed. 

Still  only  a  child,  I  was  affectionate  toward  him.  And,  till  he 
discouraged  me,  I  kissed  him  good  night  every  night.  I  liked  the 
smell  of  the  cigars  he  smoked. 

I  wanted  my  father  to  be  more  affectionate  to  me,  to  notice  me 
more.  I  thought  that  a  father  should  be  something  intuitively 
understanding  and  sympathetic.  And  mine  was  offish  .  .  of  a  dif- 
ferent species  .  .  wearing  his  trousers  always  neatly  pressed  .  . 
and  his  neckties — he  had  them  hanging  in  a  neat,  perfect  row,  never 
disarranged.  The  ends  of  them  were  always  pulled  even  over  the 
smooth  stick  on  which  they  hung. 

I  can  see  my  father  yet,  as  he  stands  before  the  mirror,  pains- 
takingly adjusting  the  tie  he  had  chosen  for  the  day's  wear. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  33 

I  was  not  at  all  like  him.  Where  I  took  my  knee  britches  off, 
there  I  dropped  them.  They  sprawled,  as  if  half-alive,  on  the  floor 
.  .  my  shirt,  clinging  with  one  arm  over  a  chair,  as  if  to  keep  from 
falling  to  the  floor  .  .  my  cap,  flung  hurriedly  into  a  corner. 


"Christ,  Johnnie,  won't  you  ever  learn  to  be  neat  or  civilised? 
What  kind  of  a  boy  are  you,  anyhow?" 

He  thought  I  was  stubborn,  was  determined  not  to  obey  him, 
for  again  and  again  I  flung  things  about  in  the  same  disorder  for 
which  I  was  rebuked.  But  a  grey  chaos  was  settling  over  me.  I 
trembled  often  like  a  person  under  a  strange  seizure.  My  mind 
did  not  readily  respond  to  questions.  It  went  here  and  there  in  a 
welter.  Day  dreams  chased  through  my  mind  one  after  another 
in  hurried  heaps  of  confusion.  I  was  lost  .  .  groping  .  .  in  a 
curious  new  world  of  growing  emotions  leavened  with  grievous, 
shapeless  thoughts. 

Strange  involuntary  rhythms  swung  through  my  spirit  and  body. 
Fantastic  imaginations  took  possession  of  me. 

And  I  prayed  at  night,  kneeling,  great  waves  of  religious  emotion 
going  over  me.  And  when  my  father  saw  me  praying  by  the  bed- 
side, I  felt  awkwardly,  shamefully  happy  that  he  saw  me.  And 
I  took  to  posing  a  childishness,  an  innocence  toward  him. 

Jenkins,  the  little  stringy  feed  merchant,  had  two  daughters,  one 
thirteen,  Alva,  and  another  Silvia,  who  was  fifteen  or  sixteen  .  .  and 
a  son,  Jimmy,  about  seven.  .  . 

It  was  over  Alva  and  Silvia  that  my  father  and  Jenkins  used  to 
come  together,  teasing  me.  And,  though  the  girls  drew  me  with  an 
enchanting  curiosity,  I  would  protest  that  I  didn't  like  girls  .  .  that 
when  I  became  full-grown  I  would  never  marry,  but  would  study 
books  and  mind  my  business,  single.  .  . 

After  this  close,  crafty,  lascivious  joking  between  them,  my  father 
would  end  proudly  with — 

"Johnnie's  a  strange  boy,  he  really  doesn't  care  about  such  things. 
All  he  cares  about  is  books." 

So  I  succeeded  in  completely  fooling  my  father  as  to  the  changes 
going  on  within  me. 


34  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Though  I  had  not  an  atom  of  belief  left  in  orthodox  Christianity 
(or  thought  I  had  not)  I  still  possessed  this  all-pervasive  need  to 
pray  to  God.    A  need  as  strong  as  physical  hunger. 

Torn  with  these  curious,  new,  sweet  tumults,  I  turned  to  Him. 
And  I  prayed  to  be  pure  .  .  like  Sir  Galahad,  or  any  of  the  old 
knights  who  wore  their  lady's  favour  in  chastity,  a  male  maiden, — 
and  yet  achieved  great  quests  and  were  manly  in  their  deeds.  .  . 

The  crying  and  singing  of  the  multitudinous  life  of  insects  and 
animals  in  the  spring  marshes  under  the  stars  almost  made  me  weep, 
as  I  roamed  about,  distracted  yet  exalted,  alone,  at  night. 

I  was  studying  the  stars,  locating  the  constellations  with  a  little 
book  of  star-maps  I  possessed. 

I  wanted,  was  in  search  of,  something  .  .  something  .  .  maybe 
other  worlds  could  give  this  something  to  me  .  .  what  vistas  of 
infinite  imagination  I  saw  about  me  in  the  wide-stretching,  star- 
sprinkled  sky! 

Dreaming  of  other  worlds  swinging  around  other  suns,  seething 
with  strange  millions  of  inhabitants,  through  all  space,  I  took  to 
reading  books  on  astronomy  .  .  Newcomb  .  .  Proctor's  Other 
Worlds  .  .  Camille  Flammarion  .  .  Garret  Serviss  as  he  wrote  in 
the  daily  papers  .  .  and  novels  and  romances  dealing  with  life  on 
the  moon,  on  Mars,   on  Venus.  .  . 

During  my  night-rovings  I  lay  down  in  dark  hollows,  sometimes, 
and  prayed  to  God  as  fervently  as  if  the  next  moment  I  might 
expect  His  shining  face  to  look  down  at  me  out  of  the  velvet,  far- 
reaching  blackness  of  night: 

"O  God,  make  me  pure,  and  wonderful  .  .  let  me  do  great  things 
for  humanity  .  .  make  me  handsome,  too,  O  God,  so  that  girls  and 
women  will  love  me,  and  wonder  at  me,  in  awe,  while  I  pass  by  unper- 
turbed— till  one  day,  having  kept  myself  wholly  for  her  as  she  has 
kept  herself  for  me, — give  me  then  the  one  wonderful  and  beautiful 
white  maiden  who  will  be  mine  .  .  mine  .  .  all  and  alone  and  altogether, 
as  I  shall  be  all  and  alone  and  altogether  hers.  And  let  me  do 
things  to  be  wondered  at  by  watching  multitudes,  while  bands  play 
and  people  applaud." 

Such  was  my  mad,  adolescent  prayer,  while  the  stars  seemed  to 
answer  in  sympathetic  silence.  And  I  would  both  laugh  and  weep, 
thrilled  to  the  core  with  ineffable,  enormous  joy  because  of  things 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  35 

I  could  not  understand  .  .  and  I  would  want  to  sHout  and  dance 
extravagantly. 

•  •••••• 

The  Jenkins  girls  were  curious  about  me,  and  while  they,  together 
with  the  rest  of  the  feed  merchant's  family,  thought  me  slightly 
"touched,"  still  they  liked  the  unusual  things  I  said  about  the  stars 
.  .  and  about  great  men  whose  biographies  I  was  reading  .  .  and 
about  Steele's  Zoology  I  was  studying,  committing  all  the  Latin 
nomenclature  of  classification  to  heart,  with  a  curious  hunger  for 
even  the  husks  and  impedimenta  of  learning.  .  . 

Silvia  was  a  rose,  half-opened  .  .  an  exquisite  young  creature. 
Alva  was  gawky  and  younger.  She  was  callow  and  moulting,  flat- 
footed  and  long-shanked.     Her  face  was  sallow  and  full  of  freckles. 

In  the  long  Winter  evenings  we  sat  together  by  the  warmth  of 
the  kitchen  stove,  alone,  studying  our  lessons, — the  place  given  over 
entirely  to  us  for  our  school  work. 

A  touch  of  the  hand  with  either  of  them,  but  with  Silvia  espe- 
cially, was  a  superb  intoxication,  an  ecstasy  I  have  never  since 
known.  When  all  my  power  of  feeling  fluttered  into  my  fingers  .  . 
and  when  we  kissed,  each  night,  good-night  (the  girls  kissed  me 
because  I  pretended  to  be  embarrassed,  to  object  to  it)  our  home- 
work somehow  done, — the  thought  of  their  kisses  was  a  memory  to 
lie  and  roll  in,  for  hours,  after  going  to  bed. 

I  would  pull  away  as  far  as  I  could  from  my  father,  and  think 
luxuriously,  awake  sometimes  till  dawn. 

•  •••••• 

I  hated  school  so  that  I  ran  away.  For  the  first  time  in  my 
life,  but  by  no  means  my  last,  I  hopped  a  freight. 

I  was  absent  several  weeks. 

When  I  returned,  weary,  and  dirty  from  riding  in  coal  cars,  my 
father  was  so  glad  to  see  me  he  didn't  whip  me.  He  was,  in  fact,  a 
little  proud  of  me.  For  he  was  always  boastful  of  the  many  miles 
he  had  travelled  through  the  various  states,  as  salesman,  not  many 
years  before.  And  after  I  had  bathed,  and  had  put  on  the  new 
suit  which  he  bought  me,  I  grew  talkative  about  my  adventures, 
too. 

I  now  informed  my  father  that  I  wanted  to  go  to  work.  Which 
I  didn't  so  very  much.  But  anything,  if  only  it  was  not  going  to 
school.    He  was  not  averse  to  my  getting  a  job.    He  took  out  papers 


36  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

for  me,  and  gave  me  work  under  him,  in  the  drying  department  of 
the  Composite  Works.  My  wage  was  three  dollars  a  week.  My 
task,  to  hang  the  thin  sheets  of  composite,  cut  from  three  to  fifteen 
hundredths  of  an  inch  in  thickness,  on  metal  clips  to  dry. 

In  the  Composite  Works  I  discovered  a  new  world — the  world  of 
factory  life. 

I  liked  to  be  sent  to  the  other  departments  on  errands.  There 
were  whirling  wheels  and  steadily  recurring,  ever-lapsing  belts  .  . 
and  men  and  women  working  and  working  in  thin  fine  dust,  or  among 
a  strong  smell  as  of  rubbed  amber — the  characteristic  smell  of  com- 
posite when  subjected  to  friction.   .   . 

And  these  men  and  women  were  continually  joking  and  jesting  and 
making  horse-play  at  one  another's  expense,  as  rough  people  in  their 
social  unease  do. 

They  seemed  part  and  adjunct  to  the  machines,  the  workers ! 
Strong,  sturdy,  bared  forearms  flashed  regularly  like  moving,  rhyth- 
mic shafts  .  .  deft  hands  clasped  and  reached,  making  only  neces- 
sary movements. 

Each  department  housed  a  different  kind  of  worker.  In  the 
grinding,  squealing,  squeaking,  buzzing  machine  shop  the  men  were 
not  mixed  with  women. 

They  were  alert,  well-muscled ;  their  faces  were  streaked  with 
paleness  and  a  black  smutch  like  dancers  made  up  for  a  masquerade. 
Always  they  were  seeking  for  a  vigorous  joke  to  play  on  someone. 
And,  if  the  trick  were  perpetrated  within  the  code,  the  foreman 
himself  enjoyed  it,  laughing  grimly  with  the  "boys." 

Once  I  was  sent  to  the  machine  shop  for  "strap  oil."  I  was  thrown 
over  a  greasy  bench  and  was  given  it — the  laying  on  of  a  heavy  strap 
not  at  all  gently !  I  ran  away,  outraged,  to  tell  ray  father ;  as  I  left, 
the  men  seemed  more  attentive  to  their  work  than  ever.  They 
ismiled  quietly  to  themselves. 

In  the  comb  department  the  throwing  of  chunks  of  composite 
was  the  workers'  chief  diversion.  And  if  you  were  strange  there, 
you  were  sure  to  be  hit  as  you  passed  through. 

The  acid  house  was  a  gruesome  place.  Everything  in  it  and  for 
yards  around  it,  was  covered  with  a  yellow  blight,  as  if  the  slight 
beard  of  some  pestilential  fungous  were  sprouting  .  .  the  only  people 
the  company  could  induce  to  work  there  were  foreigners  who  knew 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  37 

little  of  America.  .  .  Swedes  mostly  .  .  attentive  churchgoers  on 
Sunday, — ^who  on  week-days,  and  overtime  at  nights,  laboured  their 
lives  out  among  the  pungent,  lung-eating  vats  of  acid.  The  fumes 
rose  in  yellow  clouds.  Each  man  wore  something  over  his  nose  and 
mouth  resembling  a  sponge.  But  many,  grown  careless,  or  through 
a  silly  code  of  mistaken  manliness,  dispensed  with  this  safeguard 
part  of  the  time.  And  whether  they  dispensed  with  it  or  not,  the 
lives  of  the  workers  in  the  acid  house  was  not  much  more  than  a 
matter  of  a  few  years  .  .  big,  hulking,  healthy  Swedes,  newly 
arrived,  with  roses  in  their  cheeks  like  fair,  young  girls,  faded  per- 
ceptibly from  day  to  day,  into  hollow-cheeked,  jaundice-coloured 
death's-heads.  They  went  about,  soon,  with  eyes  that  had  grey 
gaunt  hollows  about  them — pits  already  cavernous  like  the  eye- 
pits  of  a  skull. 

**Well,  they  don't  have  to  work  in  there  unless  they  want  to,  do 
they?" 

"Ah,  they're  only  a  lot  of  foreigners  anyhow." 

Three  dollars  a  week  was  a  lot  of  money  for  me  .  .  a  fortune, 
because  I  had  never  owned  anything  higher  than  nickles  and  dimes 
before. 

And  my  father,  for  the  first  few  weeks,  allowed  me  to  have  all  I 
earned,  to  do  with  as  I  wished.  Later  on  he  made  me  save  two 
dollars  a  week. 

Each  Saturday  I  went  down  to  Newark  and  bought  books  .  . 
very  cheap,  second  hand  ones,  at  Breasted's  book  store. 

Every  decisive  influence  in  life  has  been  a  book,  every  vital  change 
in  my  life,  I  might  say,  has  been  brought  about  by  a  book. 

My  father  owned  a  copy  of  Lord  Byron  in  one  volume.  It  was 
the  only  book  he  cared  for,  outside  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet, 
together  with,  of  course,  his  own  various  books  on  Free  Masonry 
and  other  secret  societies. 

At  first,  oddly  enough,  it  was  my  instinct  for  pedantry  and  lin- 
guistic learning  that  drew  me  to  Byron.  I  became  enamoured  of 
the  Latin  and  Greek  quotations  with  which  he  headed  his  lyrics  in 
Hours  of  Idleness,  and  laboriously  I  copied  them,  lying  on  my 
belly  on  the  floor,  under  the  lamp  light.  And  under  these  quotations 
1  indited  boyish  rhymes  of  my  own. 


38  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Then  I  began  to  read — Manfred,  Marino  Faliero,  Sardanapalus 
— the  Deformed  Transformed.  .  .  The  Bride  of  Abydos,  The  Cor- 
sair, Lara,  The  Prisoner  of  ChiUon. 

The  frontispiece  to  the  book  was  a  portrait  of  Byron  with  flowing 
tie  and  open  shirt.  Much  as  a  devout  Catholic  wears  a  gold  cross 
around  his  neck  to  signify  his  belief,  with  a  like  devoutness  I  took 
to  wearing  my  shirt  open  at  the  neck,  and  a  loose,  flowing  black  tie. 
And  I  ruffled  my  hair  in  the  Byronic  style. 

"I  see  you're  discovering  Byron,"  my  father  laughed. 

Then  he  slyly  intimated  that  the  best  of  the  poet's  works  I  had 
evidently  overlooked,  Childe  Harold  and  Don  Juan.  And  he  quoted 
me  the  passage  about  the  lifted  skirt  above  the  peeking  ankle.  And 
he  reinforced  his  observation  by  grinning  salaciously. 

From  that  time  on  I  searched  with  all  the  fever  of  adolescence 
through  Byron  for  every  passage  which  bore  on  sex,  the  mystery  of 
which  was  beginning  to  devour  my  days. 

I  read  and  pondered,  shaking  with  eagerness,  the  stories  of  Haidee, 
of  Antonia  and  Julia — the  tale  of  the  dream  of  Dudu.  I  dwelt  in 
a  musk-scented  room  of  imagination.  Silver  fountains  played  about 
me.  Light  forms  flowed  and  undulated  in  white  draperies  over 
mosaiced  pavements  .  .  flashing  dark  eyes  shone  myteriously  and 
amorously,  starry  through  curtains  and  veils. 

My  every  thought  was  alert  with  naive,  speculative  curiosity  con- 
cerning the  mystery  of  woman. 

Through  Byron  I  learned  about  Moore.  I  procured  the  latter's 
Lalla  RooJch,  his  odes  of  Anacreon. 

From  Byron  and  Moore  I  built  up  an  adolescent  ideal  of  woman, 
— exquisitely  sensual  and  sexual,  and  yet  an  angel,  superior  to  men: 
an  ideal  of  a  fellow  creature  who  was  both  a  living,  breathing  mystery 
and  a  walking  sweetmeat  .  .  a  white  creation  moved  and  actuated  by 
instinct  and  intuition — a  perpetually  inexplicable  ecstasy  and  mad- 
ness to  man. 

I  drew  more  and  more  apart  to  myself.  Always  looked  upon 
as  queer  by  the  good,  bourgeois  families  that  surrounded  us,  I  was 
now  considered  madder  still. 

How  wonderful  it  would  be  to  become  a  hermit  on  some  far 
mountain  side,  wearing  a  grey  robe,  clear-browed  and  calmly  specu- 
lative under  the  stars — or,  maybe, — more  wonderful :  a  singer  for 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  39 

men,  a  travelling  minstrel — in  each  case,  whether  minstrel  or  hermit, 
whether  teaching  great  doctrines  or  singing  great  songs  for  all 
the  world — to  have  come  to  me,  as  a  pilgrim  seeking  enlightenment, 
the  most  beautiful  maiden  in  the  world,  one  who  was  innocent  of 
what  man  meant.  And  together  we  would  learn  the  mystery  of  life, 
and  live  in  mutual  purity  and  innocence. 

The  strangeness  of  my  physical  person  lured  me.  I  marvelled  at, 
scrutinised  intimately  the  wonder  of  myself.  I  was  insatiable  in 
my  curiosities. 

My  discovery  of  my  body,  and  my  books,  held  me  in  equal  bond- 
age. I  neglected  my  work  in  the  drying  room.  My  father  was 
vexed.  He'd  hunt  me  out  of  the  obscure  corners  back  of  the  hang- 
ing sheets  of  composite  where  I  hid,  absorbed  in  myself  and  the  book 
I  held,  and  would  run  me  back  to  work. 

One  day,  in  the  factory,  two  other  boys  on  an  errand  from  another 
department,  came  back  where  I  sat,  in  a  hidden  nook,  reading 
Thompson's  Seasons.  One  of  them  spit  over  my  shoulder,  between 
the  leaves.  I  leaped  to  my  feet,  infuriated,  and  a  fight  began.  The 
desecration  of  my  beloved  poetry  gave  me  such  angry  strength  that 
I  struck  out  lustily  and  dropped  both  of  them.   .   . 

Rushing  in  on  the  uproar  and  blaming  me  for  it,  my  father 
seized  me  by  the  collar.  He  booted  the  other  boys  off,  who  were 
by  this  time  on  their  feet  again,  took  me  up  into  the  water-tower, 
and  beat  me  with  one  of  the  heavy  sticks,  with  metal  clips  on  it,  that 
Was  used  for  hanging  the  composite  on. 

Still  trembling  with  the  fight,  I  shook  with  a  superadded  ague  of 
fear.  My  father's  chastisement  brought  back  to  me  with  a  chill 
the  remembrance  of  the  beatings  Uncle  Landon  had  given  me. 

"By  God,  Johnnie,  this  is  the  only  thing  there's  left  to  do  with 
you."    He  flung  me  aside.    I  lay  there  sobbing. 

"Tell  me,  my  boy,  what  is  the  matter  with  you?"  he  asked,  soft- 
ening. Unlike  Landon,  he  was  usually  gentle  with  me.  He  seldom 
treated  me  harshly. 

"Father,  I  don't  want  to  work  any  more." 


40  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Don't  want  to  work?  .  .  but  you  quit  school  just  to  go  to 
work,  at  your  own  wish !" 

"I  want  to  go  back  to  school !" 

"Back  to  school?  .  .  you'll  be  behind  the  rest  by  now." 

"I've  been  studying  a  lot  by  myself,"  I  replied,  forgetting  the 
feel  of  the  stick  already  and  absorbed  in  the  new  idea. 

By  this  time  we  were  down  the  stairs  again,  and  I  was  sitting  by 
my  father's  desk.  He  took  up  the  unlighted  cigar  he  always  carried 
in  his  mouth  (for  smoking  was  not  allowed  among  such  inflammable 
material  as  composite).  He  sucked  at  it  thoughtfully  from  habit, 
as  if  he  were  smoking. 

"Look  here,  my  son,  what  is  the  matter  with  you  .  .  won't  you 
tell  your  daddy?" 

"Nothing's  the  matter  with  me,  Pop !" 

"You're  getting  thin  as  a  shadow  .   .   are  you  feeling  sick?" 

"No,  Pop !" 

"You're  a  queer  little  duck." 

There  was  a  long  silence. 

"You're  always  reading  .  .  good  books  too  .  .  yet  you're  no 
more  good  in  school  than  you  are  at  work  ...  I  can't  make  you 
out,  by  the  living  God,  I  can't  .   .  what  is  it  you  want  to  be?" 

"I  don't  know,  only  I  want  to  go  back  to  school  again." 

"But  what  did  you  leave  for?" 

"I  hated  arithmetic." 

"What  do  you  want  to  study,  then?" 

"Langua?ges." 

"Would  you  like  a  special  course  in  the  high  school? 

"Principal  Balling  of  the  Keeley  Heights  High  School  might  be 
able  to  work  you  in.    He  is  a  brother  Mason  of  mine." 

"I  know  some  Latin  and  Greek  and  Ancient  History  already.  I 
have  been  teaching  myself." 

"Well,  you  are  a  queer  fish  .  .  there  never  was  anyone  like  you 
in  the  family,  except  your  mother.  She  used  to  read  and  read,  and 
read.  And  once  or  twice  she  wrote  a  short  story  .  .  had  one 
accepted,  even,  by  the  Youth's  Companion  once,  but  never  printed." 

Though  it  was  some  months  off  till  the  Fall  term  began,  on  the 
strength  of  my  desire  to  return  to  school  my  father  let  me  throw 
up  my  job.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  4.1 

But  we  soon  found  out  that,  brother  in  the  bond,  or  not.  Princi- 
pal Balling  could  not  get  me  into  high  school  because  I  was  not 
well  enough  prepared.  My  studying  and  reading  by  myself,  though 
it  had  been  quite  wide,  had  also  been  too  desultory.  The  principal 
advised  a  winter  in  the  night  school  where  men  and  boys  who  had 
been  delayed  in  their  education  went  to  learn. 

I  ran  about  that  summer,  with  a  gang  of  fellow  adolescents; 
our  headquarters,  strange  to  say,  being  the  front  room  and  outside 
steps  of  an  undertaker's  establishment.  This  was  because  our  leader 
was  the  undertaker's  boy-of-all-work.  Harry  Mitchell  was  his  name. 
Harry,  a  sort  of  young  tramp,  fat  and  pimply-faced,  had  jaunted 
into  our  town  one  day  from  New  York,  and  had  found  work  with 
the  undertaker.  Harry  had  watery  blue  eyes  and  a  round,  moon 
face.  He  was  a  whirlwind  fighter  but  he  never  fought  with  us.  It 
was  only  with  the  leaders  of  other  gangs  or  with  strangers  that 
he  fought. 

Harry  continued  our  education  in  the  secrets  and  mysteries  of 
life,  in  the  stable-boy  and  gutter  way, — by  passing  about  among  us 
books  from  a  sort  of  underground  library  .  ,  vile  things,  fluently 
conceived  and  made  even  more  vivid  and  animal  with  obscene  and 
uninmaginable  illustrations.  And  our  minds  were  trailed  black  with 
slime. 

And  whole  afternoons  we  stood  about  on  the  sidewalk  jeering  and 
fleering,  jigging  and  singing,  talking  loud,  horse-laughing,  and 
hungrily  eyeing  the  girls  and  women  that  passed  by,  who  tried  hard 
to  seem,  as  they  went,  not  self-conscious  and  stifl"-stepping  because 
of  our  observation  .  .  and  sometimes  we  whistled  after  them  or 
called  out  to  them  in  falsetto  voices. 

As  a  child  my  play  had  been  strenuous  and  absorbing,  like  work 
that  one  is  happy  at,  so  that  at  night  I  fell  asleep  with  all  the 
pleasant  fatigue  of  a  labourer. 

It  is  the  adolescent  who  loafs  and  dawdles  on  street  corners.  For 
the  cruel  and  fearfiil  urge  of  sex  stirs  so  powerfully  in  him,  that  he 
hardly  knows  what  to  do,  and  all  his  days  and  nights  he  writhes 
in  the  grip  of  terrible  instincts. 

Yet,  in  the  midst  of  the  turbidness  of  adolescence,  I  was  still  two 
distinct  personalities.    With  my  underground  library  of  filth  hidden 


42  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

away  where  my  father  could  not  find  it,  at  the  same  time  I  kept  and 
read  my  other  books.  The  first  were  for  the  moments  of  madness 
and  curious  ecstasy  I  had  learned  how  to  induce. 

But  my  better  self  periodically  revolted.  And  I  took  oath  that 
I  would  never  again  spew  a  filthy  expression  from  my  mouth  or  do 
an  ill  thing.  I  suffered  all  the  agonies  of  the  damned  in  hell.  I 
believe  hell  to  be  the  invention  of  adolescence. 

Always,  inevitably,  I  returned  to  my  wallow  and  the  gang. 

We  were  not  always  loafing  in  front  of  the  undertaker's  shop. 
Sometimes  we  were  quite  active.  Many  windows  and  street  lamps 
were  smashed.  And  we  derived  great  joy  from  being  pursued  by 
the  "cops" — especially  by  a  certain  fat  one,  for  whom  we  made  life 
a  continual  burden. 

Once  we  went  in  a  body  to  the  outskirts  of  the  town  and  stoned 
a  greenhouse.  Its  owner  chased  us  across  ploughed  fields.  We 
flung  stones  back  at  him.  One  hit  him  with  a  dull  thud  and  made 
him  cry  out  with  pain,  and  he  left  off  pursuing  us.  It  was  so  dark 
we  could  not  be  identified. 

One  of  our  favourite  diversions  was  to  follow  mature  lovers  as 
they  strolled  a-field,  hoping  to  catch  them  in  the  midst  of  intimate 
endearments. 

My  father  received  a  raise  of  a  few  dollars  in  salary.  As  it  was 
they  paid  him  too  little,  because  he  was  easy-going.  The  additional 
weekly  money  warranted  our  leaving  the  Jenkinses  and  renting  four 
rooms  all  our  own,  over  the  main  street.  This  meant  that  I  was  to 
have  a  whole  room  to  myself,  and  I  was  glad  .  .  a  whole  room 
where  I  could  stand  a  small  writing  desk  and  set  up  my  books  in 
rows.    With  an  extreme  effort  I  burned  my  underground  books. 

All  the  women  liked  my  father.  He  dressed  neatly  and  well.  His 
trousers  were  never  without  their  fresh  crease.  He  was  very  vain 
of  his  neat  appearance,  even  to  the  wearing  of  a  fresh-cut  flower 
in  his  buttonhole.  This  vanity  made  him  also  wear  his  derby  indoors 
and  out,  because  of  his  entirely  bald  head. 

Every  time  he  could  devise  an  excuse  for  going  to  the  depart- 
ments where  the  women  worked,  he  would  do  so,  and  flirt  with  them. 
He,  for  this  reason  I  am  sure,  made  special  friends  with  Schlegel, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  43 

foreman  of  the  collar  department.     I  never  saw  a  man  derive  a 
keener  pleasure  out  of  just  standing  and  talking  with  women. 

Though,  like  most  men,  he  enjoyed  a  smutty  story,  yet  I  never 
heard  him  say  a  really  gross  thing  about  any  woman.  And  his 
language  was  always  in  good  English,  with  few  curses  and  oaths 
in  it. 

•  •••••• 

Our  new  place  was  a  bit  of  heaven  to  me.  I  procured  a  copy  of 
Whitman's  Leaves  of  Grass,  of  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  and 
Descent  of  Man.  Laboriously  I  delved  through  these  last  two  books, 
my  knowledge  of  elementary  zoology  helping  me  to  the  explication 
of  their  meaning. 

The  theory  of  evolution  came  as  a  natural  thing  to  me.  It 
seemed  that  I  knew  it  all,  before, — as  I  did,  because,  in  my  own  way, 
I  had  thought  out  the  problem  of  the  growth  of  the  varying  forms 
of  animal  life,  exactly  to  the  Darwinian  conclusion. 

Whitman's  Leaves  of  Grass  became  my  Bible. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  I  made  the  harrowing  discovery  that  I 
had  been  working  evil  on  myself  .  .  through  an  advertisement  of  a 
quack  in  a  daily  paper. 

And  now  I  became  an  anchorite  battling  to  save  myself  from  the 
newly  discovered  monstrosity  of  the  flesh.  .  .  For  several  days  I 
would  be  the  victor,  but  the  thing  I  hugged  to  my  bosom  would 
finally  win.  Then  would  follow  a  terror  beyond  comprehension,  a 
horror  of  remorse  and  degradation  that  human  nature  seemed  too 
frail  to  bear.    I  grew  thinner  still.    I  fell  into  a  hacking  cough. 

And,  at  the  same  time,  I  became  more  perverse  in  my  affectation 
of  innocence  and  purity — saying  always  to  my  father  that  I  never 
could  care  for  girls,  and  that  what  people  married  for  was  beyond 
my  comprehension.  Thus  I  threw  his  alarmed  inquisitiveness  off  the 
track.  .  . 

I  procured  books  about  sexual  life.  My  most  cherished  volume 
was  an  old  family  medical  book  with  charred  covers,  smelling  of 
smoke  and  water,  that  I  had  dug  out  of  the  ruins  of  a  neighbouring 
fire. 

In  the  book  was  a  picture  of  a  nude  woman,  entitled  The  Female 
Form  Divine.  I  tore  this  from  the  body  of  the  book  and  kept  it 
under  my  pillow. 


44  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  would  draw  it  forth,  press  it  against  myself,  speak  soft  words 
of  affection  to  it,  caress  and  kiss  it,  fix  my  mind  on  it  as  if  it  were 
a  living  presence.  Often  the  grey  light  of  dawn  would  put  its  ashen 
hand  across  my  sunken  cheeks  before  dead-heavy,  exhausted  sleep 
proved  kind  to  me.  .  . 

Again :  my  imagination  grew  to  be  all  graveyards,  sepulchral  urns, 
skeletons.  How  beautiful  it  would  be  to  die  young  and  a  poet,  to 
die  like  the  young  English  poet,  Henry  Kirke  White,  whose  works 
I  was  so  enamoured  of.  The  wan  consumptive  glamour  of  his  career 
led  me,  as  he  had  done,  to  stay  up  all  night,  night  after  night, 
studying.  .  . 

After  the  surging  and  mounting  of  that  in  me  which  I  could  not 
resist,  several  hours  of  strange,  abnormal  calm  would  ensue  and 
for  that  space  I  would  swing  calm  and  detached  from  myself,  like  a 
luminous,  disembodied  entity.  And  then  it  was  that  I  would  write 
and  write.  The  verses  would  come  rushing  from  my  pen.  I  must 
hurry  with  them  before  my  early  death  overtook  me. 

There  were  two  visions  I  saw  continually  in  my  sleep: 

One  was  of  myself  walking  with  a  proud  step  down  a  vast  hall, 
the  usual  wreath  of  fame  on  my  head.  I  wore  a  sort  of  toga.  And 
of  course  a  great  concourse  of  people  stood  apart  in  silent  reverence 
on  either  side,  gazing  at  me  admiringly.  With  the  thunder  of  their 
hand-clapping  I  would  wake. 

The  other  dream  was  of  being  buried  alive. 

I  lay  there,  smelling  the  dark  earth,  and  not  being  able  to  stir 
so  much  as  the  last  joint  of  my  little  finger.  Yet  every  nerve  of 
me  ached  with  sentience  .  .  and  I  woke  gasping,  my  face  bathed 
with  tears  and  the  moisture  of  terror. 

From  head  to  foot  hot  flushes  swept  over  me.  And  I  was  stung 
with  the  pricking  of  a  million  needles  going  in  sharply  at  every 
pore!  .  .  was  bathed  in  cold  sweats.     And  I  hoped  I  was  dying. 

"Johnnie,  what  are  you  doing  to  yourself?"  And  my  father  fixed 
his  eyes  on  me. 

"Nothing,  Father!" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  45 

"If  you  weren't  such  a  good  boy,  I'd — "  and  he  halted,  to  continue, 
"as  it  is,  you're  a  clean  boy,  and  I'm  proud  of  you." 

I  struggled  hard  to  speak  with  him,  to  make  a  confidant  of  him, 
but  I  could  not. 

"I  wonder,"  he  added  with  alarm  in  his  voice,  "I  wonder  if  you're 
catching  consumption,  the  disease  your  mother  died  of  .  .  you  must 
be  careful  of  yourself." 

I  told  him  I  would  be  careful.   .   . 

"I  think  I'll  send  you  back  home  to  visit  the  folks  this  fall." 

There  was  a  restaurant  just  around  the  corner  from  where  we 
lived  in  our  second  story  flat — a  restaurant  which  bore  the  legend 
stuck  up  in  the  window,  "Home  Cooking."  The  sign  itself  was  of 
a  dull,  dirty,  fly-specked  white  which  ought  to  have  been  a  sufficient 
warning  to  the  nice  palate. 

The  place  was  run  by  a  family  of  three  .  .  there  was  Mister 
Brown,  the  man,  a  huge-built,  blotch-faced,  retired  stone-mason,  his 
meagre  little  wife,  Mrs.  Brown,  and  their  grass-widow  daughter. 
Flora  .  .  .  Flora  did  but  little  work,  except  to  lean  familiarly 
and  with  an  air  of  unspoken  intimacy,  over  the  tables  of  the  men, 
as  she  slouched  up  with  their  food  .  .  and  she  liked  to  sit  outside 
in  the  back  yard  when  there  was  sunshine  .  .  in  the  hammock  for 
more  comfort  .   .   shelling  peas  or  languidly  peeling  potatoes. 

Flora's  vibrant,  little,  wasplike  mother  whose  nose  was  so  sharp 
and  red  that  it  made  me  think  of  Paul's  ferret — she  bustled  and 
buzzed  about,  doing  most  of  the  work. 

Looking  out  from  our  back  window,  I  could  see  Flora  lolling, 
and  I  would  read  or  write  a  little  and  then  the  unrest  would  become 
too  strong  and  I  would  go  down  to  her.  Soon  two  potato  knives 
would  be  working. 

"Come  and  sit  by  me  in  the  hammock." 

I  liked  that  invitation  .  .  she  was  plump  to  heaviness  and  sitting 
in  the  hammock  crushed  us  pleasantly  together. 

This  almost  daily  propinquity  goaded  my  adolescent  hunger  into 
an  infatuation  for  her, — I  thought  I  was  in  love  with  her, — though 
I  never  quite  reconciled  myself  to  the  cowlikeness  with  which  she 
chewed  gum. 

She  was  as  free  and  frank  of  herself  as  I  was  curious  and  timid. 


46  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Johnnie,  what  small  feet  and  little  hands  you  have  .  .  you're  a 
regular  aristocrat." 


A  pause. 

I  give  her  a  poem  written  to  her.  She  reads  it,  letting  her  knife 
stick  in  a  half-peeled  potato.  She  looks  up  at  me  out  of  heavy- 
lidded  eyes. 

•  •••••• 

"I  believe  you're  falling  in  love  with  me." 

I  trembled,  answered  nothing,  was  silent. 

"Kiss  me !" 

Seeing  me  so  a-tremble,  she  obeyed  her  own  injunction.  With 
slow  deliberation  she  crushed  her  lips,  full  and  voluptuous,  into 
mine.  The  warmth  of  them  seemed  to  catch  hold  of  something  deep 
down  in  me,  and,  with  exquisite  painfulness,  draw  it  out.  Blinded 
with  emotion,  I  clutched  close  to  her.  She  laughed.  I  put  one 
hand  over  her  full  breast  as  infants  do.     She  pushed  me  back. 

"There,  that's  enough  for  one  day — a  promise  of  sweets  to  come !" 
and  she  laughed  again,  with  a  hearty  purr  like  a  cat  that  has  a 
mouse  at  its  mercy. 

She  rose  and  carried  in  the  pan  of  potatoes  we  had  just  finished 
peeling.  And  I  saw  her  sturdy,  but  not  unshapely  ankles  going  from 
me  as  she  went  up  the  steps  from  the  yard,  her  legs  gleaming  white 
through  her  half-silk  hose  (that  were  always  coming  down,  and  that 
she  was  always  twisting  up,  just  under  her  knees,  before  my  abashed 
eyes).  She  wore  shoes  much  too  little  for  her  plump  feet  .  .  and, 
when  not  abroad,  let  them  yawn  open  unbuttoned.  And  her  plump 
body  was  alive  and  bursting  through  her  careless,  half-fastened 
clothes. 

She  sang  with  a  deep  sultriness  of  voice  as  she  walked  away  with 
the  pan  of  potatoes. 

**You  ought  to  see  my  Florrie  read  books !"  exclaimed  the  mother. 
Flora  did  read  a  lot  .  .  but  chiefly  the  erotic  near-society  novels 
that  Belford  used  to  print.  .  . 

"Yes,  she's  a  smart  girl,  she  is."  m 

And  the  father.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  47 

"I  won't  work  till  the  unions  get  better  conditions  for  a  man.     I 
won't  be  no  slave  to  no  man." 


One  sultry  afternoon  I  went  into  the  restaurant  and  found  Flora 
away.     Poignantly  disappointed,  I  asked  where  she  was. 

" — Gone  on  a  trip !"  her  mother  explained,  without  explaining. 
From  time  to  time  Flora  went  on  "trips." 

And  one  morning,  several  mornings.  Flora  was  not  there  to  serve 
at  the  breakfast  table  .  .  and  I  was  hurt  when  I  learned  that  she 
had  gone  back  to  Newark  to  live,  and  had  left  no  word  for  me.  Her 
father  told  me  she  "had  gone  back  to  George,"  meaning  her  never- 
seen  husband  from  whom  she  evidently  enjoyed  intervals  of  separa- 
tion and  grass-widowhood. 

I  was  puzzled  and  hurt  indeed,  because  she  had  not  even  said  good- 
bye to  me.    But  soon  came  this  brief  note  from  her: 

"Dearest  Boy: — 

Do  come  up  to  Newark  and  see  me  some  afternoon.  And  come 
more  than  once.  Bring  your  Tennyson  that  you  was  reading  aloud 
to  me.  I  love  to  hear  you  read  poetry.  I  think  jou  are  a  dear  and 
want  to  see  more  of  you.  But  I  suppose  you  have  already  for- 
gotten 

Your  loving 

Floea. 

In  the  absurd  and  pitiful  folly  of  youth  I  lifted  the  letter  to  my 
lips  and  kissed  it.  I  trembled  with  eagerness  till  the  paper  rattled 
as  I  read  it  again  and  again.  It  seemed  like  some  precious  holy 
script. 

I  bolted  my  lunch  nervously  and  it  stuck  half  way  down  in  a 
hard  liunp.    I  would  go  to  her  that  very  afternoon. 

•  •••••• 

The  car  on  which  I  rode  was  subject  to  too  frequent  stoppage 
for  me.  I  leaped  out  and  walked  along  with  brisk  strides.  But 
the  car  sailed  forth  ahead  of  me  now  on  a  long  stretch  of  roadway 
and  I  ran  after  it  to  catch  it  again.  The  conductor  looked  back 
at  me  in  derisive  scorn  and  made  a  significant  whirling  motion  near 


48  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

his  temple  with  his  index  finger,  indicating  that  I  had  wheels 
there.  .  . 

At  last  I  found  the  street  where  Flora  lived.  I  trailed  from  door 
to  door  till  the  number  she  had  given  me  met  my  eye.  It  made  my 
heart  jump  and  my  knees  give  in,  to  be  so  near  the  quarry.  For 
the  first  time  I  was  to  be  alone  with  a  woman  I  desired. 

At  the  bell,  it  took  me  a  long  time  to  gain  courage  to  pull.  But 
at  last  I  reached  out  my  hand.  I  had  to  stand  my  ground.  I 
couldn't  run  away  now.     The  bell  made  a  tinkling  sound  far  within. 

The  door  opened  cautiously.  A  head  of  touseled  black  hair  crept 
out. 

*' Johnnie,  dear!     You!  .  .  .  you  are  a  surprise!" 

Did  I  really  detect  an  echo  of  disappointment  in  her  deep,  con- 
tralto voice? 

Frightened  in  my  heart  like  a  trapped  animal,  I  went  in.  Down 
a  long,  dusk,  musty-smelling  corridor  and  into  a  back-apartment 
on  the  first  floor ;  she  led  me  into  a  room  which  was  bed-and-sitting 
room  combined.  In  one  part  of  it  stood  several  upholstered  chairs 
with  covers  on,  cluttered  about  a  plain  table.  In  the  other  part 
stood  a  bureau  heaped  with  promiscuous  toilette  articles,  and  a  huge, 
brass-knobbed  bed  with  a  spread  of  lace  over  its  great,  semi-upright 
pillows. 

"Shall  I  let  in  a  little  more  light,  dear.?" 

"Do." 

For  the  blinds  were  two-thirds  down. 

"I  like  to  sit  and  think  in  the  dark,"  she  explained,  and  her  one 
dimple  broke  in  a  rich,  brown-faced  animal  smile. 

"Yes,  but  I — I  want  to  see  your  lovely  face,"  I  stuttered,  with 
much  effort  at  gallantry.  .  . 

"He's  not  at  home  .  .  he's  off  at  Wilmington,  on  a  job"  (mean- 
ing her  husband,  though  I  had  not  asked  about  him),  "But  what 
made  you  come  so  soon?    You  must  of  just  got  my  letter!" 

"I — I  wanted  you,"  I  blurted  .  .  in  the  next  moment  I  was  at  her 
feet  in  approved  romantic  fashion,  following  up  my  declaration  of 
desire.  Calmly  she  let  me  kneel  there.  .  .  I  put  my  arms  about  her 
plump  legs  .  .  I  was  almost  fainting.  .  . 

After  a  while  she  took  me  by  the  hair  with  both  hands.     She 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  4.9 

slowly  bent  my  head  back  as  I  knelt.  Leaning  over,  she  kissed  delib- 
erately, deeply  into  my  mouth  .  .  then,  gazing  into  my  eyes  with  a 
puzzled  expression,  as  I  relaxed  to  her — almost  like  something  in- 
animate. .  . 

''Why,  you  dear  boy,  I  believe  you're  innocent  like  a  child.  And 
yet  you  know  so  much  about  books  .  .  and  you're  so  wise,  too!" 

As  she  spoke  she  pushed  back  my  mad  hands  from  their  clutch- 
ing and  reaching.  She  held  both  of  them  in  hers,  and  closed  them 
in  against  her  half-uncovered,  fuU  breasts,  pressing  them  there. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you've  never  gone  out  with  the 
boys  for  a  good  time.''  .  .  how  old  are  you.'"' 

I  told  her  I  was  just  sixteen. 

"Do  you  think  I'm  .  .  I'm  too  young.''"  I  asked. 

*'I  feel  as  if  I  was  your  mother  .  .  and  I'm  not  much  over  twenty 
.  .  but  do  sit  up  on  a  chair,  dear!" 

She  stood  on  her  feet,  shook  out  her  dress,  smiled  curiously,  and 
started  out  of  the  room.  I  was  up  and  after  her,  my  arms  around 
her  waist,  desperate.  She  slid  around  in  my  arms,  laughing  quietly 
to  herself  till  the  back  of  her  head  was  against  my  mouth.  I  kissed 
and  kissed  the  top  of  her  head.  Then  she  turned  slowly  to  face  me, 
pressing  all  the  contours  of  her  body  into  me  .  .  she  crushed  her 
bosom  to  mine.  Already  I  was  quite  tall;  and  she  was  stocky  and 
short  .  .  she  lifted  her  face  up  to  me,  a  curious  kindling  light  in 
her  eyes  .  .  of  a  phosphorescent,  greenish  lustre,  like  those  chance 
gleams  in  a  cat's  eyes  you  catch  at  night.  .  . 

She  took  my  little  finger  and  deliberately  bit  it  .  .  then  she  leaned 
away  from  my  seeking  mouth,  my  convulsive  arms.   .  . 

"You  want  too  much,  all  at  once,"  she  said,  and,  whirling  about 
broke  away.  .  . 
P      With  the  table  between  me  and  her.  .  . 

"Wouldn't  you  like  a  little  beer,  and  some  sandwiches.''  I  have 
some  in  the  ice  box  .  .  Do  let's  have  some  beer  and  sandwiches." 

I  assented,  though  hating  the  bitter  taste  of  beer,  and  hungry  for 
her  instead  of  sandwiches.  And  soon  we  were  sitting  down  calmly  at 
the  table,  or  rather,  she  was  sitting  down  calmly  .  .  baffled,  I  pre- 
tended to  be  calm. 

As  she  rose  for  something  or  other,  I  sprang  around  the  table 
and  caught  her  close  to  me  once  more,  marvelling,  at  the  same  time, 


50  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

at  my  loss  of  shyness,  my  new-found  audacity.    Again  she  snuggled 
in  close  to  me,  her  flesh  like  a  warm,  palpitating  cushion. 

*'Flora,  my  darling  .  .  help  me !"  I  cried,  half-sobbing. 

*'What  do  you  mean?"  laughing. 

«I  love  you !" 

**I  know  all  you  want !" 

**But  I  do  love  you  .  .  see.  .  .  " 

And  I  prostrated  myself,  in  a  frenzy,  at  her  feet. 

"Say,  you're  the  queerest  kid  I've  ever  known." 

And  she  walked  out  of  the  room  abruptly,  while  I  rose  to  my  feet 
and  sat  in  a  chair,  dejected.  She  came  in  again,  a  twinkle  in  her 
eye. 

**Don't  torture  me,  Flora!"  I  pleaded,  "either  send  me  away, 
or '* 

*'Stop  pestering  me  .  .  let's  talk  .  .  read  me  some  of  that  Tenny- 
son you  gave  me  .  .  "  and  I  began  reading  aloud,  for  there  was 
nothing  else  she  would  for  the  moment,  have  me  do.  .  . 

•  ••••>• 

"You're  a  poet,"  whimsically,  "I  want  you  to  write  some  letters 
to  me  because  I  know  you  must  write  beautiful." 

" — if  you  will  only  let  me  love  you !" 

"Well,  ain't  I  lettin'  you  love  me?" 

A  perverse  look  came  into  her  face,  a  thought,  an  idea  that 
pleased  her 

"I've  lots  and  lots  of  letters  from  men,"  she  began,  "men  that 
have  been  in  love  with  me." 

*'0h!"  I  exclaimed  weakly  .  .  she  had  just  expressed  a  desire  to 
add  some  of  mine  to  the  pack  .  .  the  next  thing  that  she  followed 
up  with  gave  me  a  start 

"Your  father " 

"My  father? "  I  echoed. 

"He's  written  me  the  best  letters  of  all  .  .  wait  a  minute.  .  .  I'll 
read  a  little  here  and  there  to  you."  And,  gloating  and  triumphant, 
and  either  not  seeing  or,  in  her  vulgarity,  not  caring  what  effect 
the  reading  of  my  father's  love  letters  would  have  on  me,  she  began 
reading  ardent  passages  aloud.  "See!"  She  showed  me  a  page 
to  prove  that  it  was  in  his  handwriting.  The  letters  told  a  tale 
easy  to  understand.     She  was  so  eager  in  her  vanity  that  she  read 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  51 

on  and  on  without  seeing  in  my  face  what,  seen,  would  have  made 
her  stop. 

A  frightful  trembling  seized  me,  a  loathing,  a  horror.  This  was 
my  father's  woman  .  .  and  .  .  I !.  .  . 

I  sat  on,  dumbfounded,  paralysed.  I  remembered  his  stories  of 
trips  to  T —  and  other  places  on  supposed  lodge  business  .  .  un- 
luckily, I  also  remembered  that  several  times  Flora  had  been  off 
on  trips  at  the  same  time. 

"Just  listen  to  this,  will  you !"  and  she  began  at  another  passage. 

She  was  so  absorbed  in  her  reading  that  she  did  not  see  how  I  was 
on  my  feet .  .  .  had  seized  my  hat  .  .  .  was  going. 

"I'm  sorry,  Flora,  but  I've  got  to  go !" 

"What?"  looking  up  and  surprised,  " — got  to  go?'* 

"Yes  .  .  Yes  .  .  I  must — must  go !"  my  lips  trembled. 

"Why,  we're  just  getting  acquainted  .  .  I  didn't  mean  for  you  to 
go  yet." 

She  rose,  dropping  the  letters  all  in  a  heap. 

She  was  the  aggressive  one  now.  She  drew  me  to  her  quickly, 
"Stay  .  .  and  I'll  promise  to  be  good  to  you !" 

I  pushed  back,  loathing  .  .  loathing  her  and  myself,  but  myself 
more,  because  in  spite  of  all  my  disgust,  my  pulses  leaped  quick 
again  to  hers. 

"Sit  down  again." 

I  did  not  listen,  but  stood. 

"I  was  thinking  that  you  would  stay  for  supper  and  then  we 
could  go  to  some  show  and  after  come  back  here  and  I  would  give 
you  a  good  time." 

I  staggered  out,  shocked  beyond  belief,  the  last  animal  flush  had 
died  out  of  me.     All  my  body  was  ice-cold. 

"Promise  me  you'll  come  again  this  day  next  week,"  she  called 
after  me  persistently. 

She  drew  the  door  softly  shut  and  left  me  reeling  down  the  dark 
corridor. 

I  could  hardly  speak  to  my  father  that  night.    I  avoided  him. 

At  the  creeping  edge  of  dawn  I  woke  from  a  dream  with  a  jerk 
as  I  slid  down  an  endless  black  abyss.     The  abyss  was  my  bed's 


52  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

edge  and  I  found  myself  on  the  floor.  When  I  went  to  rise  again, 
I  had  to  clutch  things  to  stand  up.  I  was  so  weak  I  sat  on  the  bed 
breathing  heavily.  I  tumbled  backward  into  bed  again  and  lay  in 
a  daze  during  which  dream-objects  mixed  with  reality  and  my  room 
walked  full  of  people  from  all  the  books  I  had  read — all  to  evaporate 
as  my  father's  face  grew,  from  a  cluster  of  white  foreheads  and 
myriads  of  eyes,  into  him. 

"Johnnie,  wake  up  .  .  are  you  sick?" 

"Please  go  away  from  me  and  let  me  alone."  I  turned  my  face 
to  the  wall  in  loathing. 

"I'll  call  a  doctor." 

•  •••••  • 

The  doctor  came.  He  felt  my  pulse.  Put  something  under  my 
tongue.     Whispered  my  father  in  a  room,  apart.     Left. 

My  father  returned,  dejected,  yet  trying  to  act  light  and  merry. 

"What  did  the  doctor  say?"  I  forced  myself  to  ask  of  him. 

*'To  be  frank,  Johnnie  .  .  you're  old  enough  to  learn  the  truth 
...  he  thinks  you're  taken  down  with  consumption." 

"That's  what  my  mother  died  of." 

My  father  shuddered  and  put  his  face  down  in  his  hands.  I  felt 
a  little  sorry  for  him,  then. 

*'Well  you've  got  to  go  West  now  .  .  and  work  on  a  farm  .  .  or 
something." 

I  began  to  get  ready  for  my  trip  West.  Surely  enough,  I  had 
consumption,  if  symptoms  counted  .  .  pains  under  the  shoulder 
blades  .  .  spitting  of  blood  .  .  night-sweats.  .  . 

But  my  mind  was  quickened:  I  read  Morley's  History  of  Eng- 
lish Literature.  .  .  Chaucer  all  through  .  .  Spenser  .  .  even  Gower's 
Confessio  Amantis  and  Lydgate's  ballads  .  .  my  recent  discovery 
of  Chatterton  having  made  me  Old  English-mad. 

As  I  read  the  life  of  young  Chatterton  I  envied  him,  his  fame  and 
his  early  death  and  more  than  ever,  I  too  desired  to  die  young. 

The  week  before  I  was  to  set  out  my  father  calmly  discovered 
to  me  that  he  intended  I  should  work  on  a  farm  as  a  hand  for  the 
next  four  years,  when  I  reached  Ohio  .  .  was  even  willing  to  pay 
the  farmer  something  to  employ  me.  This  is  what  the  doctor  had 
prescribed  as  the  only  thing  that  would  save  my  life — ^work  in  the 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  53 

open  air.  My  father  had  written  Uncle  Beck  to  see  that  this  pro- 
gram was  inaugurated. 

"I  won't  become  a  clod-hopper,"  I  exclaimed,  seeing  the  dreary, 
endless  monotony  of  such  a  life. 

"But  it  will  do  you  good.    It  will  be  a  fine  experience  for  you." 

"If  it's  such  a  fine  experience  why  don't  you  go  and  do  it?" 

"I  won't  stand  any  nonsense." 

"I'd  rather  die  .  .  I'm  going  to  die  anyhow," 

"Yes,  if  you  don't  do  what  I  tell  you." 

"I  won't." 

"We'll  see." 

*'Very  well,  father,  we  will  see." 

"If  you  weren't  such  a  sick  kid  I'd  trounce  you." 

You  could  approach  Antonville  by  surrey,  buggy  or  foot  .  . 
along  a  winding  length  of  dusty  road  .  .  or  muddy  .  .  according  to 
rain  or  shine. 

My  Uncle  Beck  drove  me  out  in  a  buggy. 

Aunt  Alice,  so  patient-faced  and  pretty  and  sweet-eyed  in  her 
neat  poverty — greeted  me  with  a  warm  kiss. 

"Well,  you'll  soon  be  well  now." 

*'But  I  won't  work  on  a  farm," 

"Never  mind,  dear  .  .  don't  worry  about  that  just  yet." 
•  ••*••• 

That  afternoon  I  sat  with  Aunt  Alice  in  the  kitchen,  watching 
her  make  bread.  Everyone  else  was  out:  Uncle  Beck,  on  a  case  .  . 
Cousin  Anders,  over  helping  with  the  harvest  on  a  neighbouring 
farm.  .  .  Cousin  Anna  was  also  with  the  harvesters,  helping  cook 
for  the  hands  .  .  for  the  Doctor's  family  needed  all  the  outside 
money  they  could  earn. 

For  Uncle  Beck  was  a  dreamer.  He  thought  more  of  his  variorum 
Shakespeare  than  he  did  of  his  medical  practice.  And  he  was  slow- 
going  and  slow-speaking  and  so  conscientious  that  he  told  patients 
the  truth  .  .  all  which  did  not  help  him  toward  success  and  solid 
emolument.  He  would  take  eggs  in  payment  for  his  visits  .  .  or 
jars  of  preserves  .  .  or  fresh  meat,  if  the  farmer  happened  to  be 
slaughtering. 


64  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Where's  Granma?"  I  asked  Aunt  Alice,  as  she  shoved  a  batch 
of  bread  in  the  oven. 

"She's  out  Halton  way  .  .  she'll  go  crazy  with  joy  when  she  gets 
word  you're  back  home.  She'll  start  for  here  right  off  as  soon  as 
she  hears  the  news.     She's  visiting  with  Lan  and  his  folks." 

When  I  heard  Lan  mentioned  I  couldn't  help  giving  a  savage 
look. 

Aunt  Alice  misinterpreted. 

*'What,  Johnnie — won't  you  be  glad  to  see  her!  .  .  you  ought 
to  .  .  she's  said  over  and  over  again  that  she  loved  you  more  than 
she  did  any  of  her  own  children." 

"It  isn't  that — I  hate  Landon.  I  wish  he  was  dead  or  someone 
would  kill  him  for  me." 

**Johnnie,  you  ought  to  forgive  and  forget.     It  ain't  Christian." 

"I  don't  care.     I'm  not  a  Christian." 

"O  Johnnie!"  shocked  .  .  then,  after  a  pause  of  reproach  which 
I  enjoyed —  "your  Uncle  Lan's  toned  down  a  lot  since  then  .  . 
married  .  .  has  four  children  .  .  one  every  year."  And  Alice  laughed 
whimsically. 

*' — and  he's  stopped  gambling  and  drinking,  and  he's  got  a  good 
job  as  master-mechanic  in  a  factory.  .  . 

He  was  young  .  .  he  was  only  a  boy  in  the  days  when  he  whipped 
you." 

"Yes,  and  I  suppose  I  was  old?  .  .  I  tell  you.  Aunt  Alice,  it's 
something  I  can't  forget  .  .  the  dirty  coward,"  and  I  swore  violently, 
forgetting  myself. 

At  that  moment  Uncle  Beck  appeared  suddenly  at  the  door,  back 
from  a  case. 

"Here,  here,  that  won't  do !  I  don't  allow  that  kind  of  language 
in  my  household."  And  he  gave  me  a  severe  and  admonishing  look 
before  going  off  on  another  and  more  urgent  call  that  waited  him. 


"And  how's  Granma  been  getting  on?" 

" — aging  rapidly  .  ."  a  pause,  ".  .  hasn't  got  either  of  the  two 
houses  on  Mansion  Avenue  now  .  .  sold  them  and  divided  the  money 
among  her  children  .  .  gave  us  some  .  .  and  Millie  .  .  and  Lan  .  . 
wouldn't  hear  of  'no'  .  ."  parenthetically,  "Uncle  Joe  didn't  need 
any;  he's  always  prospered  since  the  early  days,  you  know." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  55 

"And  what's  Granma  up  to  these  days?'*  For  she  was  always 
doing  sweet,  ignorant,  childish,  impractical  things. 

" — spirit-rapping  is  it?  or  palmistry?  or  magnetic  healing?  or 
what?" 

"You'll  laugh!" 

"Tell  me !" 

"She's  got  a  beau." 

"What?  a  beau?  and  she  eighty  if  a  day!" 

"Yes,  we — all  her  children — think  it's  absurd.  And  we're  all 
trying  to  advise  her  against  it  .  .  but  she  vows  she's  going  to  get 
married  to  him  anyhow." 

"And  who  is  her  "fellow"? 

" — a  one-legged  Civil  War  veteran  .  .  a  Pennsylvania  Dutch- 
man named  Snyder  .  .  owns  a  house  near  Beaver  Falls  .  .  draws  a 
pension  .  .  he's  a  jolly  old  apple-cheeked  fellow  .  .  there's  no  doubt 
they  love  each  other  .  .  only — only  it  seems  rather  horrible  for 
two  people  as  old  as  they  are  to  go  and  get  married  like  two  young 
things  .  .  and  really  fall  in  love,  too !" 

I  was  silent  .  .  amused  .  .  interested  .  .  then — "well,  Granma'U 
tell  me  all  about  it  when  she  comes  .  .  and  I  can  judge  for  myself, 
and,"  I  added  whimsically,  "I  suppose  if  they  love  each  other  it 
ought  to  be  all  right." 

And  we  both  laughed. 

When  Granma  heard  I  was  West  she  couldn't  reach  Antonville 
fast  enough.  She  was  the  same  dear  childlike  woman,  only  incred- 
ibly older-looking.  Age  seemed  to  have  fallen  on  her  like  an  invading 
army,  all  at  once.  Her  hair  was,  every  shred  of  it,  not  only  grey, 
but  almost  white.  There  shone  the  same  patient,  sweet,  ignorant, 
too-trusting  eyes  .  .  there  was  the  blue  burst  of  vein  on  her  lower  lip. 

After  she  had  kissed  and  kissed  me,  stroked  and  stroked  my  head 
and  face  in  speechless  love,  I  looked  at  her  intently  and  lied  to 
please  her: 

"Why,  Granma,  you  don't  look  a  day  older." 

**But  I  am,  Johnnie,  I  am.  I've  been  working  hard  since  you 
left."  As  if  she  had  not  worked  hard  before  I  left  .  .  she  informed 
me  that,  giving  away  to  her  children  what  she  had  received  for  the 
sale  of  her  two  houses  (that  never  brought  her  anything  because 
of  her  simplicity,  while  they  were  in  her  possession)  she  had  grown 


56  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

tired  of  "being  a  burden  to  them,"  as  she  phrased  it,  and  had  hired 
herself  out  here  and  there  as  scrubwoman,  washerwoman,  house- 
keeper, and  what  not.  .  . 

Later  I  learned  that  nothing  could  be  done  with  her,  she  was  so 
obstinate.  She  had  broken  away  despite  the  solicitude  of  all  her 
children — who  all  loved  her  and  wanted  her  to  stay  with  them. 

At  last  she  had  answered  an  advertisement  for  a  housekeeper  .  . 
that  appeared  in  a  farm  journal  .  .  and  so  she  had  met  her  old 
cork-legged  veteran,  whom  she  now  had  her  mind  set  on  marrying. 

"But  Granma,  to  get  married  at  your  age.'"' 

"I'd  like  to  ask  why  not?"  she  answered  sweetly,  "I  feel  as  young 
as  ever  when  it  comes  to  men  .  .  and  the  man  .  .  you  wait  till  you 
see  him  .  .  you'll  like  him  .  .  he's  such  a  good  provider,  Johnnie; 
he  draws  a  steady  pension  of  sixty  dollars  a  month  from  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  he'll  give  me  a  good  home." 

"But  any  of  my  aunts  and  uncles  would  do  the  same." 

"Yes,  Johnnie,  but  it  ain't  the  same  as  having  a  man  of  your 
own  around  .  .  there's  nothing  like  that,  Johnnie,  for  a  woman." 

"But  your  own  children  welcome  you  and  treat  you  well?" 

"Oh,  yes,  Johnnie,  my  little  boy,  but  in  spite  of  that,  I  feel  in  the 
way.  And,  no  matter  how  much  they  love  me,  it's  better  for  me 
to  have  a  home  of  my  own  and  a  man  of  my  own." 

"Besides,  Billy  loves  me  so  much,"  she  continued,  wistfully,  "and 
even  though  he's  seventy  whereas  I'm  eighty  past,  he  says  his  being 
younger  don't  make  no  difference  .  .  and  he's  always  so  jolly  .  . 
always  laughing  and  joking." 

•  •  .  *  •  •  • 

"We  must  begin  to  allow  for  Granma,"  Aunt  Alice  told  me,  "she's 
coming  into  her  second  childhood." 

Granma  believed  thoroughly  in  my  aspirations  to  become  a  poet. 
With  great  delight  she  retailed  incidents  of  my  childhood,  reminding 
me  of  a  thousand  youthful  escapades  of  which  she  constituted  me 
the  hero,  drawing  therefrom  auguries  of  my  future  greatness. 
One  of  the  incidents  which  alone  sticks  in  my  memory: 
"Do  you  'mind,' "  she  would  say,  "how  you  used  to  follow  Millie 
about  when  she  papered  the  pantry  shelves  with  newspapers  with 
scalloped  edges?  and  how  you  would  turn  the  papers  and  read 
them,  right  after  her,  as  she  laid  them  down,  and  make  her  frantic?" 


( 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  57 

"Yes,"  I  would  respond,  highly  gratified  with  the  anecdote,  "and 
you  would  say.  Oh,  Millie,  don't  get  mad  at  the  little  codger,  some 
day  he  might  turn  out  to  be  a  great  man !'  " 

Uncle  Beck  had  a  fine  collection  of  American  Letters.  I  found 
a  complete  set  of  Hawthorne  and  straightway  became  a  moody  and 
sombre  Puritan  .  .  and  I  wrote  in  Hawthornian  prose,  quaint  essays 
and  stories.  And  I  lived  in  a  world  of  old  lace  and  lavender,  of 
crinoline  and  brocade. 

And  then  I  discovered  my  uncle's  books  on  gynecology  and 
obstetrics  .  .  full  of  guilty  fevers  I  waited  until  he  had  gone  out 
on  a  call  and  then  slunk  into  his  oflSce  to  read.  .  . 

One  afternoon  my  doctor-uncle  came  suddenly  upon  me,  taking 
me  unaware. 

••••••• 

"Johnnie,  what  are  you  up  to.'"' 
" — was  just  reading  your  medical  books." 

*'Come  over  here,"  already   seated   at  his  desk,   on  his   swivel- 
chair,  he  motioned  me  to  a  seat. 
"Sit  down!" 

I  obeyed  him  in  humiliated  silence. 
He  rose  and  closed  the  door,  hanging  the  sign  "Busy"  outside. 

At  last  I  learned  about  myself  and  about  life. 

The  harvesting  over,  Anders  began  to  chum  with  me.  We  took 
long  walks  together,  talking  of  many  things  .  .  but,  chiefly,  of 
course,  of  those  things  that  take  up  the  minds  of  adolescents  .  . 
of  the  mysteries  of  creation,  of  life  at  its  source  .  .  of  why  men 
and  women  are  so  .  .  and  I  took  it  for  granted,  after  he  confessed 
that  he  had  fallen  into  the  same  mistakes  as  I,  suiTering  similar 
agonies,  that  he  had  been  set  right  by  his  father,  the  doctor,  as 
I  just  had.  I  was  surprised  to  find  he  had  not.  So  I  shared  with 
him  the  recent  knowledge  I  had  acquired. 


And  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  Uncle  Beck  has  said  nothing  to 


you 


?» 


"Not  a  single  word  .  .  never." 

"But  why  didn't  you  ask  him  then  .  ,  him  being  a  doctor.?" 


58  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"How  can  a  fellow  talk  with  his  father  about  such  things?" 
"It's  funny  to  me  he  didn't  inform  you,  anyhow." 
"I  was  his  son,  you  see!" 

Anders  had  a  girl,  he  told  me,  confidingly.  She  was  off  on  a  visit 
to  Mornington,  at  present  .  .  a  mighty  pretty  little  girl  and  the 
best  there  was.  .  . 

"By  the  way,  Anders,  do  you  know  second  cousin  Phoebe  at  all?" 

"Sure  thing  I  know  her  .  .  the  last  time  I  heard  of  her  .  ,.  which 
was  almost  a  year  ago — she  was  wilder  than  ever." 

"How  do  you  mean,  Anders?" 

"Her  folks  couldri  t  keep  her  in  of  nights  .  .  a  gang  of  boys  and 
girls  would  come  and  whistle  for  her,  and  she'd  get  out,  sooner  or 
later,  and  join  them." 

"I  tell  you  what,"  I  began,  in  an  unpremeditated  burst  of  inven- 
tion, which  I  straightway  believed,  it  so  appealed  to  my  imagina- 
tion, "I've  never  told  anybody  before,  but  all  these  years  I've  been 
desperately  in  love  with  Phoebe." 

Anders  scrutinised  me  quizzically,  then  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
actor  in  my  face  made  him  believe  me.  .  . 

"Well,  no  matter  how  bad  she  is,  she  certainly  was  a  beaut,  the 
last  time  I  saw  her." 

"I'm  going,"  I  continued  "(you  mustn't  tell  anybody),  I'm  going 
down  to  Aunt  Rachel's,  after  I  leave  here,  and  get  Phoebe."  And 
eagerly  and  naively  we  discussed  the  possibilities  as  we  walked 
homeward.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

After  my  talk  with  Uncle  Beck  all  my  morbidity  began  to  melt 
away,  and,  growing  better  in  mind,  my  body  grew  stronger  .  .  he 
wrote  to  my  father  that  it  was  not  consumption  .  .  so  now  I  was 
turning  my  coming  West  into  a  passing  visit,  instead  of  a  long 
enforced  sojourn  there  for  the  good  of  my  health. 

I  found  different  household  arrangements  on  revisiting  Aunt 
Rachel  and  her  household. 

For  one  thing,  the  family  had  moved  into  town  .  .  Newcastle  .  . 
and  they  had  a  fine  house  to  live  in,  neat  and  comfortable.  Gone 
was  that  atmosphere  of  picturesque,  pioneer  poverty.     Though,  to 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  59 

be  sure,  there  sat  Josh  close  up  against  the  kitchen  stove,  as  of  old. 
For  the  first  sharp  days  of  fall  were  come  .  .  he  was  spitting 
streams  of  tobacco,  as  usual. 

"I  hate  cities,"  was  his  first  greeting  to  me.  He  squirted  a  brown 
parabola  of  tobacco  juice,  parenthetically,  into  the  wood-box  behind 
the  stove,  right  on  top  of  the  cat  that  had  some  kittens  in  there. 

Aunt  Rachel  caught  him  at  it. 

"Josh,  how  often  have  I  told  you  you  mustn't  spit  on  that  cat." 

"  'Scuse  me,  Ma,  I'm  kind  o'  absint-minded." 

The  incident  seemed  to  me  so  funny  that  I  laughed  hard.  Aunt 
Rachel  gave  me  a  quiet  smile. 

"Drat  the  boy,  he's  alius  findin'  somethin'  funny  about  things !" 

This  made  me  laugh  more.  But  I  had  brought  Uncle  Josh  a  big 
plug  of  tobacco,  and  he  was  placated,  ripping  off  a  huge  chew  as 
soon  as  he  held  it  in  his  hands. 

The  great  change  I  have  just  spoken  of  came  over  the  family 
because  Phoebe's  two  sisters,  Jessie  and  Mona — who  had  been  off 
studying  to  be  nurses,  now  had  come  back,  and,  taking  cases  in 
town,  they  were  making  a  good  living  both  for  themselves  and  the 
two  old  folks.  .  . 

I  had  learned  from  Uncle  Beck,  as  he  drove  me  in  to  Mornington, 
that,  the  last  he  heard  of  Phoebe,  she  was  working  out  as  a  maid 
to  "some  swells,"  in  that  city. 

"Damme,  ef  I  don't  hate  cities  an'  big  towns,"  ejaculated  Uncle 
Josh,  breaking  out  of  a  long,  meditative  silence,  "you  kain't  keep 
no  dogs  there  .  .  onless  they're  muzzled  .  .  and  no  ferrets,  neither  .  . 
and  what  'ud  be  the  use  if  you  could?  .  .  there  ain't  nothin'  to  hunt 
anyhow  .  .  wisht  we  lived  back  on  thet  old  muddy  hilltop  agin." 

Supper  almost  ready  .  .  the  appetizing  smell  of  frying  ham — 
there's  nothing,  being  cooked,  smells  better.  .  . 

Paul  came  in  from  work  .  .  was  working  steady  in  the  mills  now, 
Aunt  Rachel  had  informed  me. 

Paul  came  in  without  a  word,  his  face  a  mask  of  such  empty 
hopelessness  that  I  was  moved  by  it  deeply. 

"Paul,  you  mustn't  take  on  so.  It  ain't  right  nor  religious," 
said  Uncle  Josh,  knocking  the  ashes  out  of  his  pipe  .  .  he  smoked 
and  chewed  in  relays.     Paul  replied  nothing. 


60  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Come  on,  folks,"  put  in  Rachel,  "supper's  ready  .  .  draw  your 
chairs  up  to  the  table." 

We  ate  our  supper  under  a  quiet,  grey  mood.  An  air  of  tragedy 
seemed  to  hang  over  us  .  .  for  the  life  of  me  I  couldn't  understand 
what  had  become  of  Paul's  good-natured,  rude  jocosity.  Why  he 
had  grown  into  a  silent,  sorrowful  man.  .  . 

"You  kin  bunk  up  with  Paul  to-night,  Johnnie,"  announced 
Rachel,  when  it  came  bedtime. 

Paul  had  already  slunk  off  to  bed  right  after  supper.  It  was 
dark  in  the  room  when  I  got  there. 

"Paul,  where's  the  light?" 

" — put  it  out  .  .  like  to  lie  in  the  dark  an'  think,"  answered  a 
deep,  sepulchral  voice. 

*' Whatever  is  the  matter  with  you,  Paul.'"'. 

"Ain't  you  heered.?    Ain't  Ma  told  you.?" 

"No !" 

Paul  struck  a  match  and  lit  the  lamp.  I  sat  on  the  side  of  the 
bed  and  talked  with  him. 

*'Ain't  you  heered  how  I  been  married?"  he  began. 

*'So  that's  it,  is  it?"  I  anticipated  prematurely,  "and  you  weren't 
happy  .  .  and  she  went  off  and  left  you !" 

"Yes,  she's  left  me  all  right,  Johnnie,  but  not  that  way  .  .  she's 
dead !" 

And  Paul  stopped  with  a  sob  in  his  throat.  I  didn't  know  what 
to  say  to  his  sudden  declaration,  so  I  just  repeated  foolishly,  "why, 
I  never  knew  you  got  married !"  twice. 

*'Christ,  Johnnie,  she  was  the  best  little  woman  in  the  world — such 
a  little  creature,  Johnnie  .  .  her  head  didn't  more'n  come  up  to 
under  my  armpits." 

There  followed  a  long  silence,  to  me  an  awkward  one;  I  didn't 
know  what  to  do  or  say.  Then  I  perceived  the  best  thing  was  to 
let  him  ease  his  hurt  by  just  talking  on  .  .  and  he  talked  .  .  on 
and  on  .  .  in  his  slow,  drawling  monotone  .  .  and  ever  so  often 
came  the  refrain,  "Christ,  but  she  was  a  good  woman,  Johnnie.  . 
I  wish  you'd  'a'  knowed  her." 

At  last  I  ventured,  "and  how — how  did  she  come  to  die?" 

" — ^baby  killed  her,  she  was  that  small  .  .  she  was  like  a  little 
girl  .  .  she  oughtn't  to  of  had  no  baby  at  all,  doctor  said.  .  ." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  61 

"I  killed  her,  Johnnie,"  he  cried  in  agony,  "and  that's  the  God's 
truth  of  it." 

Another  long  silence. 

The  lamp  guttered  but  didn't  go  out.  A  moth  had  flown  down 
its  chimney,  was  sizzling,  charring,  inside  .  .  Paul  lifted  off  the 
globe.  Burnt  his  hands,  but  said  nothing  .  .  flicked  the  wingless, 
blackened  body  to  the  floor.  .  . 

"But  the  baby?— it  lived?" 

"Yes,  it  lived  .  .  a  girl  .  .  if  it  hadn't  of  lived  .  .  if  it  had 
gone,  too,  I  wouldn't  of  wanted  to  live,  either !  .  .  . 

"That's  why  I'm  workin'  so  hard,  these  days,  with  no  lay-offs  fer 
huntin'  or  fishin'  or  anything." 

•  •••••• 

The  next  day  I  learned  more  from  Rachel  of  how  Paul  had 
agonized  over  the  death  of  his  tiny  wife  .  .  "she  was  that  small 
you  had  a'most  to  shake  out  the  sheets  to  find  her,"  as  Josh  useter 
say,"  said  Rachel  gravely  and  unhumorously  .  .  and  she  told  how 
the  bereaved  husband  savagely  fought  off  all  his  womenfolk  and 
insisted  on  mothering,  for  a  year,  the  baby  whose  birth  had  killed 
its  mother. 

"At  last  he's  gittin'  a  little  cheer  in  his  face.  But  every  so  often 
the  gloomy  fit  comes  over  him  like  it  did  last  night  at  supper.  I 
keep  tellin'  him  it  ain't  Christian,  with  her  dead  two  years  a'ready — 
but  he  won't  listen  .  .  he's  got  to  have  his  fit  out  each  time." 

As  if  this  had  not  been  enough  of  the  tragic,  the  next  day  when 
I  asked  about  Phoebe,  Aunt  Rachel  started  crying. 

"Phoebe's  gone,  too,"  she  sobbed. 

"0,  Aunt  Rachel,  I'm  so  sorry  .  .  but  I  didn't  know  .  .  nobody 
told  me." 

"That's  all  right,  Johnnie.  Somehow  it  relieves  me  to  talk  about 
Phoebe."  She  rose  from  her  rocker,  laid  down  her  darning,  and 
went  to  a  dresser  in  the  next  room.  She  came  out  again,  holding 
forth  to  me  a  picture  .  .  Phoebe's  picture.  .  . 

A  shy,  small,  oval,  half-wild  face  like  that  of  a  dryad's.  Her 
chin  lifted  as  if  she  were  some  wood-creature  listening  to  the 
approaching  tread,  of  the  hunter  and  ready  on  the  instant  to  spring 
forth  and  run  along  the  wind.  .  . 


62  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

An  outdoor  picture,  a  mere  snapshot,  but  an  accidental  work 
of  art. 

Voluminous  leafage  blew  behind  and  above  her  head,  splashed  with 
the  white  of  sunlight  and  the  gloom  of  swaying  shadow. 

"Why,  she's — she's  beautiful !" 

"Yes — got  prettier  and  prettier  every  time  you  looked  at  her.  .  ." 

"But,"  and  Aunt  Rachel  sighed,  "I  couldn't  do  nothin'  with  her 
at  all.  An'  scoldin'  an'  whippin'  done  no  good,  neither.  Josh 
useter  whip  her  till  he  was  blue  in  the  face,  an'  she  wouldn't  budge. 
Only  made  her  more  sot  and  stubborner.  .  . 

" — guess  she  was  born  the  way  she  was  .  .  she  never  could  stay 
still  a  minute  .  .  always  fidgettin'  .  .  when  she  was  a  little  girl, 
even — I  used  to  say,  'Now,  look  here,  Phoebe,'  I'd  say,  'your  ma  'ull 
give  you  a  whole  dime  all  at  once  if  you'll  set  still  jest  for  five 
minutes  in  that  chair.'  An'  she'd  try  .  .  and,  before  sixty  seconds 
was  ticked  off  she'd  be  on  her  feet,  sayin',  'Ma,  I  guess  you  kin 
keep  that  dime.' 

"When  she  took  to  runnin'  out  at  nights,"  my  great-aunt  con- 
tinued, in  a  low  voice,  "yes,  an'  swearin'  back  at  her  pa  when  he 
gave  her  a  bit  of  his  mind,  it  nigh  broke  my  heart  .  .  and  some- 
times she'd  see  me  cryin',  and  that  would  make  her  feel  bad  an' 
she'd  quiet  down  fer  a  few  days  .  .  an'  she'd  say,  *Ma,  I'm  goin'  to 
be  a  good  girl  now,'  an'  fer  maybe  two  or  three  nights  she'd  help 
clean  up  the  supper-things — an'  then — "  with  a  breaking  voice, 
"an'  then  all  at  once  she'd  scare  me  by  clappin'  both  hands  to  that 
pretty  brown  head  o'  hers,  in  sech  a  crazy  way,  an'  sayin',  'Honest, 
Ma,  I  can't  stand  it  any  longer  .  .  this  life's  too  slow.  .  .  I've 
gotta  go  out  where  there's  some  life  n'  fun!' 

"It  was  only  toward  the  last  that  she  took  to  sneakin'  out  after 
she  pretended  to  go  to  bed  .  .  gangs  of  boys  an'  girls,  mixed, 
would  come  an'  whistle  soft  fer  her,  under  the  window  .  .  an' 
strange  men  would  sometimes  hang  aroun'  the  house  .  .  till  Josh 
went  out  an'  licked  a  couple. 

"It  drove  Josh  nigh  crazy. 

"One  evenin',  after  this  had  gone  on  a  long  time,  Josh  ups  an* 
says,  'Ma,  Phoebe's  run  complete  out  o'  hand  .  .  she'll  hafta  be 
broke  o'  this  right  now  .  .  when  she  comes  back  to-night  I'm  going 
to  give  her  the  lickin'  of  her  life.' 

"  'Josh,  you  mustn't  whip  her.    Let's  both  have  a  long  talk  with 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  63 

her.  (I  knowed  Josh  'ud  hurt  her  bad  if  he  whipped  her.  He  has  a 
bad  temper  when  he  is  het  up.)  Maybe  goin'  down  on  our  knees 
with  her  an'  prayin'  might  do  some  good.'  " 

"  *No,  Ma,  talkin'  nor  prayin'  won't  do  no  good  .  .  the  only 
thing  left  's  a  good  whippin'  to  straighten  her  out.'  " 

"O  Aunt  Rachel,"  I  cried,  all  my  desire  of  Phoebe  breaking  out 
into  tenderness.  I  looked  at  the  lovely  face,  crossed  with  sunlight, 
full  of  such  quick  intelligence,  such  mischievousness.  .  . 

You  can  catch  a  wild  animal  in  a  trap,  but  to  whip  it  would 
be  sacrilege  .  .  that  might  do  for  domesticated  animals. 

"Josh  never  laid  a  hand  on  her,  though,  that  night  .  .  she  never 
came  home  .  .  men  are  so  awful  in  their  pride,  Johnnie  .  .  don't 
you  be  like  that  when  you  grow  to  be  a  man.  .  ." 

Then  Aunt  Rachel  said  no  more,  as  Paul  came  in  at  that  moment. 
Nor  did  she  resume  the  subject. 

•  •••••• 

Next  morning  I  packed  away  to  visit  Uncle  Lan.  I  might  as 
well  go,  even  if  I  hated  him.     It  would  be  too  noticeable,  not  to  go. 

He  was  at  the  train,  waiting  for  me.  He  proffered  me  his  hand. 
To  my  surprise,  I  took  it.  He  seized  my  grip  from  me,  put  his 
other  hand  affectionately  on  my  shoulder. 

"I've  often  wondered  whether  you'd  ever  forgive  me  for  the  way 
I  beat  you.  .  .  I've  learned  better  since." 

Before  I  knew  it  my  voice  played  me  the  trick  of  saying  yes,  I 
forgave  him. 

"That's  a  good  boy !"  and  Lan  gave  my  hand  such  a  squeeze  that 
it  almost  made  me  cry  out  with  the  pain  of  it. 

"Lan,"  as  we  walked  along,  "can  you  tell  me  more  about 
Phoebe.  .  .  Aunt  Rachel  told  me  some,  but " 

"Oh,  she  ended  up  by  running  away  with  a  drummer  .  .  she  hadn't 
been  gone  long  when  her  ma  got  word  from  her  asking  her  to  forgive 
her  .  .  that  she'd  run  off  with  a  man  she  loved,  and  was  to  be 
married  to  him  pretty  soon.  .  .  Phoebe  gave  no  address,  but  the 
letter  had  a  Pittsburgh  postmark.  .  . 

"A  month  .  .  six  months  went  by.  Then  a  letter  came  in  a 
strange  hand.  The  girl  that  wrote  it  said  that  she  was  Phoebe's 
*Roommate.'  "  Lan  paused  here,  and  gave  me  a  significant  look, 
then  resumed: 


64  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Paul  went  down  to  bring  the  body  home,  and  found  she'd  been 
buried  already.  They  were  too  poor  to  have  it  dug  up  and  brought 
home." 

"It  seems  that  the  man  that  took  Phoebe  off  was  nothing  but  a 
pimp !" 

Suicide:  early  one  Sunday  morning;  early,  for  girls  of  their  pro- 
fession, the  two  girls,  Phoebe  and  her  roommate  were  sitting  in 
their  bedrooms  in  kimonos. 

"What  a  nice  Sunday,"  Phoebe  had  said,  looking  out  at  the 
window.  "Jenny,"  she  continued  to  her  roommate,  "I  have  a  feeling 
I'd  like  to  go  to  church  this  morning.   .  ." 

Jenny  had  thought  that  was  rather  a  queer  thing  for  Phoebe 
to  say.  .  . 

Jenny  went  out  to  go  to  the  delicatessen  around  the  corner,  to 
buy  a  snack  for  them  to  eat,  private,  away  from  the  rest  of  the 
girls,  it  being  Sunday  morning.    She'd  bring  in  a  Sunday  paper,  too. 

When  she  returned,  Phoebe  didn't  seem  to  be  in  the  room.  Jenny 
felt  that  something  was  wrong,  had  felt  it  all  along,  anyhow.  .  . 

She  heard  a  sort  of  gasping  and  gurgling.  .  . 

She  found  Phoebe  on  the  floor,  two-thirds  under  the  bed.  Her 
eyes  were  rolled  back  to  the  whites  from  agony.  A  creamy  froth 
was  on  her  mouth.  And  all  her  mouth  and  chin  and  pretty  white 
neck  were  burned  brown  with  the  carbolic  acid  she  had  drunk  .  .  a 
whole  damn  bottle  of  it. 

Jenny  dropped  on  her  knees  by  Phoebe  and  called  out  her  name 
loud.  .  .  *'Phoebe,  why  don't  you  speak  to  me !"  Took  her  head 
in  her  lap  and  it  only  lolled.  Then  she  began  screaming,  did  Jenny, 
and  brought  the  whole  house  up.     And  the  madame  had  shouted: 

"Shut  up,  you  bitch,  do  you  want  people  to  think  someone's 
gettin'  killed.''    Ain't  we  in  bad  enough  already.^" 

"So  Phoebe  came  to  a  bad  end,"  commented  Lan,  "as  we  always 
thought  she  would." 

The  nearest  I  came  to  having  my  long-cherished  revenge  pn 
Landon: 

Once,  in  the  night,  during  my  week's  stay  with  him,  I  stepped 
from  bed,  sleep-walking,  moving  toward   the  room  where  he   and 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  65 

Aunt  Emily  lay.  Imagining  I  held  a  knife  in  my  left  hand  (I  am 
left-handed)   to  stick  him  through  the  heart  with. 

But  I  bumped  terrifically  into  a  door  half  ajar,  and  received 
such  a  crash  between  the  eyes  that  it  not  only  brought  me  broad 
awake,  but  gave  me  a  bump  as  big  as  a  hen's  egg,  into  the  bargain. 

The  dream  of  my  revenge  had  been  so  strong  in  my  brain  that 
still  I  could  feel  the  butcher-knife  in  my  hand  .  .  and  I  looked  into 
the  empty  palm  to  verify  the  sensation,  still  there,  of  clasping  the 
handle. 

" — that  you,  Johnnie?"  called  my  uncle. 

"Yep !" 

"What's  the  matter?  can't  you  sleep?" 

"No !  — got  up  to  take  a  drink  of  water." 

"You'll  find  a  bucketful  on  the  kitchen  table,  and  the  dipper 
floating  in  it  .  .  and  there's  matches  on  the  stand  by  your  bed." 
A  pause.  He  continued:  "You  must  of  run  into  something.  I 
heard  a  bang." 

"I  did.     I  bumped  my  head  into  the  door." 

I  visited  Aunt  Millie  last. 

I  found  her  a  giantess  of  a  woman,  not  fat,  but  raw-boned  and 
tall.  Her  cheeks  were  still  as  pitted  with  hollows,  her  breath  as 
catarrhal  as  ever.  But  she  had  become  a  different  woman  since  she 
had  married. 

Her  husband  was  a  widower  with  three  children  already  before 
he  took  her  in  marriage.  He  was  a  railroad  engineer  who  drove  a 
switch  engine  in  the  yards.  He  was  as  short  as  she  was  tall  .  .  a 
diminutive  man,  but  virile  .  .  with  a  deep,  hoarse  voice  resonant 
like  a  foghorn.  The  little  man  had  an  enormous  chest  matted  with 
dense,  black  hair.  It  would  almost  have  made  a  whole  head  of  hair 
for  an  average  man.  One  could  always  see  this  hair  because  he  was 
proud  of  its  possession,  thought  it  denoted  virility  and  strength, 
and  wore  his  shirt  open  at  the  neck,  and  several  buttons  lower,  in 
order  to  reveal  his  full  hirsuteness. 

Millie  had  already  given  birth  to  two  children  of  her  own,  by 
him.  And  she  toiled  about  the  house  at  endless  duties,  day  and 
night,  happy  with  him,  and  loving  his  children  and  hers  with  an 
equal  love.     And  being  adored  in  turn  by  them. 

It  was  "Ma !"  here  and  "Ma !"  there  .  .  the  voices  of  the  children 


66  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

ever  calling  for  her.  .  .  And  she,  running  about,  waiting  on  the 
youngsters,  baking  ovensful  of  bread,  sewing,  scrubbing,  dusting  .  . 
and  talking,  talking,  talking  all  the  time  she  flew  about  at  her 
ceaseless  work.  .  . 

Uncle  Dick  loved  his  joke,  and  the  broader  the  better.  As  I 
sat  across  the  table  from  him,  at  mealtimes,  and  looked  into  his 
amused,  small  twinkling  eyes,  I  thought  continually  of  the  Miller 
in  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales.  .  . 

Millie,  too,  was  not  slow  at  having  her  joke.  She  was  roughly 
affectionate  of  me,  in  memory  of  old  days.  And  she  continually 
asked  me,  with  loud,  enjoying  laughter,  if  I  remembered  this,  that, 
and  the  other  bad  (Rabelaisan)  trick  I  had  played  on  her  back  in 
Mornington.  .  . 

But  I  was  glad  to  see  Haberford  and  the  East  again.  I  was  all 
over  my  desire  to  die  a  poet,  and  young.  .  .  Principal  Balling  had 
me  come  to  see  him.  He  examined  me  in  Latin  and  in  English 
and  History.  He  found  that,  from  study  by  myself,  I  had  pre- 
pared so  that  I  was  more  than  able  to  pass  in  these  subjects.  But 
when  it  came  to  mathematics  I  was  no  less  than  an  idiot.  He 
informed  my  father  that  he  had  been  mistaken  in  me,  before  .  . 
that  he  had  given  me  a  too  cursory  look-over,  judging  me  after  the 
usual  run  .  .  he  announced  that  he  would  admit  me  as  special 
student  at  the  Keeley  Heights  High  School. 

The  one  thing  High  School  gave  me — my  Winter  there — was 
Shelley.  In  English  we  touched  on  him  briefly,  mainly  emphasising 
his  Skylark.  It  was  his  Ode  to  the  West  Wind  that  made  me 
want  more  of  him  .  .  with  his  complete  works  I  made  myself  a 
nuisance  in  class,  never  paying  attention  to  what  anyone  said  or 
did,  but  sitting  there  like  a  man  in  a  trance,  and,  with  Shelley, 
dreaming  beautiful  dreams  of  revolutionising  the  world. 

I  awoke  only  for  English  Composition.  But  there,  inevitably,  I 
quarrelled  with  the  teacher  over  her  ideas  of  the  way  English  prose 
was  to  be  written.  She  tried  to  make  us  write  after  the  Addisonian 
model.  I  pointed  out  that  the  better  style  was  the  nervous,  short- 
sentenced,  modern  one — as  Kipling  wrote,  at  his  best,  in  his  prose. 
We  had  altercation  after  altercation,  and  the  little  dumpy  woman's 
eyes  raged  behind  her  glasses  at  me — to  the  laughter  of  the  rest 
of  the  class.     Who  really  did  not  care  for  anything  but  a  lark, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  67 

while  I  was  all  the  while  convinced  with  the  belief  that  they  sat 
up  nights,  dreaming  over  great  books  as  I  did. 

Even  yet,  though  now  I  know  better,  I  cannot  accept  the  fact 
that  the  vast  majority  find  their  only  poetry  in  a  good  bellyful  of 
food,  as  I  do  in  the  Ode  to  the  Nightingale  and  in  the  Epipsy- 
chidion.  .  . 

Dissatisfied  and  disillusioned,  it  was  again  a  book  that  lifted  me 
out  of  the  stupidity  in  which  I  found  myself  enmeshed.  Josiah 
Flynt's  Tramping  With  Tramps, — and  one  other — Two  Years 
Before  the  Mast,  by  Dana.  And  I  lay  back,  mixing  my  dreams  of 
humanity's  liberation,  with  visions  of  big  American  cities,  fields  of 
wheat  and  corn,  forests,  little  towns  on  river-bends. 

A  tramp  or  sailor — ^which.'' 

First,  the  sea  .  .  why  not  start  out  adventuring  around  the  world 
and  back  again? 

Land  .  .  sea  .  .  everything  .  .  become  a  great  adventurer  like 
my  favourite  heroes  in  the  picaresque  novels  of  Le  Sage,  Defoe,  Smol- 
lett and  Fielding? 

It  took  me  days  of  talk  with  the  gang — boasting — and  nights  of 
dreaming,  to  screw  myself  up  to  the  right  pitch. 

Then,  one  afternoon,  in  high  disgust  over  my  usual  quarrel  with 
the  English  teacher,  I  returned  to  my  room  determined  to  leave 
for  the  New  York  waterfront  that  same  afternoon.  .  . 

I  left  a  note  for  my  father  informing  him  that  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  to  go  to  sea,  and  that  he  needn't  try  to  find  me  in  order  to 
fetch  me  home  again.     I  wished  him  good  luck  and  good-bye. 

Into  my  grip  I  cast  a  change  of  clothes,  and  a  few  books:  my 
Cassar  and  Vergil  in  the  Latin,  Young's  Night  Thoughts,  and 
Shelley. 


South  Street  .  .  here  were  ships  .  .  great  tall  fellows,  their 
masts  dizzy  things  to  look  up  at. 

I  came  to  a  pier  where  two  three-masted  barks  lay,  one  on  either 
side.  First  I  turned  to  the  one  on  the  right  because  I  saw  two  men 
up  aloft.  And  there  was  a  boy  passing  down  the  deck,  carrying  a 
pot  of  coffee  aft.  I  could  smell  the  good  aroma  of  that  coffee. 
Ever  since,  the  smell  of  coffee  makes  me  wish  to  set  out  on  a  trip 
somewhere. 


68  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Hey,  Jimmy,"  I  shouted  to  the  boy. 

"Hey,  yourself!"  he  replied,  coming  belligerently  to  the  side. 
Then,  "what  do  ye  want?" 

"To  go  to  sea.     Do  you  need  anybody  aboard  for  the  voyage.'*" 

He  looked  scornfully  at  me,  as  I  stood  there,  skinny,  shadow- 
thin. 

"You  go  to  hell!"  he  cried.  Then  he  resumed  his  way  to  the 
cabin,  whistling. 

The  ship  opposite,  I  inspected  her  next.  It  was  grand  with  the 
figurehead  of  a  long,  wooden  lady  leaning  out  obliquely  with  ever- 
staring  eyes,  her  hands  crossed  over  her  breasts. 

Aboard  I  went,  down  the  solitude  of  the  deck.  I  stopped  at  the 
cook's  galley.  I  had  gone  there  because  I  had  seen  smoke  coming 
out  of  the  little  crooked  pipe  that  stood  akimbo. 

I  looked  in  at  the  door.  A  dim  figure  developed  within,  moving 
about  among  pots  and  pans.  It  was  the  cook,  I  could  tell  by  the 
white  cap  he  wore  .  .  an  old,  very  old  man.  He  wore  a  sleeveless 
shirt.  His  long  skinny,  hairy  arms  were  bare.  His  long  silvery- 
grey  beard  gave  him  an  appearance  like  an  ancient  prophet.  But 
where  the  beard  left  off  there  was  the  anomaly  of  an  almost  smooth, 
ruddy  face,  and  very  young,  straight-seeing,  blue  eyes. 

When  I  told  the  old  cook  what  I  wanted,  he  invited  me  in  to  the 
galley  and  reached  me  a  stool  to  sit  on. 

"The  captain  isn't  up  yet.  He  was  ashore  on  a  jamboree  last 
night.  You'll  see  him  walking  up  and  down  the  poop  when  he's 
hopped  out  of  his  bunk  and  eaten  his  breakfast." 

The  cook  talked  about  himself,  while  I  waited  there.  I  helped 
him  peel  a  pail  of  potatoes.  .  . 

Though  I  heard  much  of  strange  lands  and  far-away  ports,  he 
talked  mostly  of  the  women  who  had  been  in  love  with  him  .  .  slews 
of  them  .  .  "and  even  yet,  sixty-five  years  old,  I  can  make  a  good 
impression  when  I  want  to  .  .  I  had  a  girl  not  yet  twenty  down  in 
Buenos  Ayres.  She  was  crazy  about  me  .  .  that  was  only  two 
years  ago." 

He  showed  me  pictures  of  the  various  women,  in  all  parts  of 
the  world,  that  had  "gone  mad  about  him"  .  .  obviously,  they  were 
all  prostitutes.  He  brought  out  a  batch  of  obscene  photographs, 
chuckling  over  them. 

It  was  a  German  ship — the  Valkyrie.    But  the  cook  spoke  excel- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  69 

lent  English,  as  did,  I  later  found  out,  the  captain,  both  the  mates, 
and  all  but  one  or  two  of  the  crew. 

Before  the  captain  came  up  from  b&low  the  cook  changed  the 
subject  from  women  to  history.  In  senile  fashion,  to  show  off,  he 
recited  the  names  of  the  Roman  emperors,  in  chronological  sequence. 
And,  drawing  a  curtain  aside  from  a  shelf  he  himself  had  built 
over  his  bunk,  he  showed  me  Momsen's  complete  history  of  Rome, 
in  a  row  of  formidable  volumes. 


"There's  the  captain  now!" 

A  great  hulk  of  a  man  was  lounging  over  the  rail  of  the  poop- 
deck,  looking  down  over  the  dock. 

I  started  aft. 

"Hist !"  the  cook  motioned  me  back  mysteriously.  "Be  sure  you 
say  *Sir'  to  him  frequently." 

"Beg  pardon,  sir.  But  are  you  Captain  Schantze,  sir?"  (the  cook 
had  told  me  the  captain's  name). 

"Yes.     What  do  you  want?" 

"I've  heard  you  needed  a  cabin  boy." 

"Are  you  of  German  descent?" 

"No,  sir." 

"What  nationality  are  you,  then?" 

"American,  sir." 

"That  means  nothing,  what  were  your  people?'* 

"Straight  English  on  my  mother's  side  .  .  Pennsylvania  Dutch 
on  my  father's." 

"What  a  mixture!" 

He  began  walking  up  and  down  in  seaman  fashion.  After  spend- 
ing several  minutes  in  silence  I  ventured  to  speak  to  him  again. 

"Do  you  think  you  could  use  me,  sir?" 

He  swung  on  me  abruptly. 

"In  what  capacity?" 

"As  anything  .  .  I'm  willing  to  go  as  able  seaman  before  the 
mast,  if  necessary." 

He  stopped  and  looked  me.  over  and  laughed  explosively. 

"Able  seaman!  you're  so  thin  you  have  to  stand  twice  in  one 
place  to  make  a  shadow  .  .  you've  got  the  romantic  boy's  idea  of 


70  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  sea  .  .  but,  are  you  willing  to  do  hard  work  from  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning  till  nine  or  ten  at  night?" 

"Anything,  to  get  to  sea,  sir !" 

" — sure  you  haven't  run  away  from  home?" 

"No-no,  sir!" 

"Then  why  in  the  devil  do  you  want  to  go  to  sea?  isn't  the  land 
good  enough?" 

I  took  a  chance  and  told  the  captain  all  about  my  romantic 
notions  of  sea-life,  travel,  and  adventure. 

"You  talk  just  like  one  of  our  German  poets." 

"I  am  a  poet,"  I  ventured  further. 

The  captain  gave  an  amused  whistle.  But  I  could  see  that  he 
liked  me. 

"To-morrow  morning  at  four  o'clock  .  .  come  back,  then,  and 
Karl,  the  cabin  boy,  will  start  you  in  at  his  job.  I'll  promote  him 
to  boy  before  the  mast." 


I  spent  the  night  at  Uncle  Jim's  house  .  .  he  was  the  uncle  that 
had  come  east,  years  before.  He  was  married  .  .  a  head-book- 
keeper .  .  lived  in  a  flat  in  the  Bronx. 

He  thought  it  was  queer  that  I  was  over  in  New  York,  alone  .  , 
when  he  came  home  from  work,  that  evening.   .   . 

I  could  keep  my  adventure  to  myself  no  longer.  I  told  him  all 
about  my  going  to  sea.  But  did  Duncan  (my  father)  approve  of 
it?  Yes,  I  replied.  But  when  I  refused  to  locate  the  ship  I  was 
sailing  on,  at  first  Jim  tried  to  bully  me  into  telling.  I  didn't  want 
my  father  to  learn  where  I  was,  in  case  he  came  over  to  find  me  .  . 
and  went  up  to  Uncle  Jim's.   .   . 

Then  he  began  laughing  at  me. 

"You've  always  been  known  for  your  big  imagination  and  the 
things  you  make  up  .   .  I  suppose  this  is  one  of  them." 

"Let  the  boy  alone,"  my  aunt  put  in,  a  little  dark  woman  of 
French  and  English  ancestry,  "you  ought  to  thank  God  that  he 
has  enough  imagination  to  make  up  stories  .  .  he  might  be  a  great 
writer  some  day." 

"Imagination's  all  right.  I'm  not  quarrelling  with  Johnnie  for 
that.     But  you  can't  be  all  balloon  and  no  ballast." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  71 

They  made  me  up  a  bed  on  a  sofa  in  the  parlour  .  .  among  all  the 
bizarre  chairs  and  tables  that  Uncle  Jim  had  made  from  spools  .  . 
Aunt  Lottie  still  made  dresses  now  and  again  .  .  before  she  mar- 
ried Jim  she  had  run  a  dressmaking  establishment. 

Uncle  Jim  set  a  Big  Ben  alarm  clock  down  on  one  of  the  spool 
tables  for  me. 

"I've  set  the  clock  for  half-past  three.  That  will  give  you  half 
an  hour  to  make  your  hypothetical  ship  in  .  .  you'll  have  to  jump 
up  and  stop  the  clock,  anyhow.     It'll  keep  on  ringing  till  you  do." 

My  first  morning  on  shipboard  was  spent  scrubbing  cabin  floors, 
washing  down  the  walls,  washing  dishes,  waiting  on  the  captain  and 
mates'  mess  .  .  the  afternoon,  polishing  brass  on  the  poop  and 
officers'  bridge,  under  the  supervision  of  Karl,  the  former  cabin  boy. 

"Well,  how  do  you  like  it?"  asked  the  cook,  as  he  stirred  some- 
thing in  a  pot,  with  a  big  wooden  ladle. 

"Fine!  but  when  are  we  sailing?" 

"In  about  three  days  we  drop  down  to  Bayonne  for  a  cargo  of 
White  Rose  oil  and  then  we  make  a  clean  jump  for  Sydney,  Aus- 
tralia." 

"Around  Cape  Horn?"  I  asked,  stirred  romantically  at  the 
thought. 

"No.     Around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope." 

•  •••••• 

Early  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  we  left  the  dock,  as  I 
was  polishing  brass  on  deck,  my  father  appeared  before  me,  as 
abruptly  as  a  spirit. 

"Well,  here  he  is,  as  big  as  life !" 

"Hello,  Pop!" 

I  straightened  up  to  ease  a  kink  in  my  back. 

"You  had  no  need  to  hide  this  from  me,  son ;  I  envy  you,  that's  all, 
I  wish  I  wasn't  too  old  to  do  it,  myself  .  .  this  beats  travelling 
about  the  country,  selling  goods  as  a  salesman.  It  knocks  my  dream 
of  having  a  chicken  farm  all  hollow,  too.   .   ." 

He  drew  in  a  deep  breath  of  the  good,  sunny  harbour  air.  Sailors 
were  up  aloft,  they  were  singing.  The  cook  was  in  his  galley,  sing- 
ing too.    There  were  gulls  glinting  about  in  the  sun. 

"Of  course  you  know  I  almost  made  West  Point  once  .  .  had 


72  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  appointment  .  .  if  it  hadn't  been  for  a  slight  touch  of  rheu- 
matism in  the  joints  .   ."  he  trailed  off  wistfully. 

"We've  never  really  got  to  know  each  other,  Johnnie." 

I  looked  at  him.     "No,  we  haven't." 

"I'm  going  to  start  you  out  right.  Will  the  captain  let  you  off 
for  a  while?" 

"The  cook's  my  boss  .  .  as  far  as  my  time  is  concerned.  I'm 
cabin  boy." 

My  father  gave  the  cook  a  couple  of  big,  black  cigars.  I  was 
allowed  shore  leave  till  four  o'clock  that  afternoon.   .   . 

" — you  need  a  little  outfitting,"  explained  my  father,  as  we 
walked  along  the  dock  to  the  street.  .  . 

"I've  saved  up  a  couple  of  hundred  dollars,  which  I  drew  out 
before  I  came  over." 

"But,  Father.   .  ." 

"You  need  a  lot  of  things.  I'm  going  to  start  you  off  right. 
While  you  were  up  in  the  cabin  getting  ready  to  go  ashore  I  had  a 
talk  with  the  cook.  .  .  I  sort  o'  left  you  in  his  charge " 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  left  in  an^^one's  charge." 

" — found  out  from  him  just  what  you'd  need  and  now  we're 
going  to  do  a  little  shopping." 

I  accompanied  my  father  to  a  seamen's  outfitting  place,  and  he 
spent  a  good  part  of  his  two  hundred  buying  needful  things  for 
me  .  .  shirts  of  strong  material  .  .  heavy  underwear  .  .  oilskins  .  . 
boots  .  .  strong  thread  and  needles  .  .  and  a  dunnage  bag  to  pack 
it  all  away  in.  .  . 

We  stood  together  on  the  after-deck  again,  my  father  and  I. 

"Now  I  must  be  going,"  he  remarked,  trying  to  be  casual.  He 
put  a  ten  dollar  bill  in  my  hand. 

" — to  give  the  boys  a  treat  with,"  he  explained  .  .  "there's  noth- 
ing like  standing  in  good  with  an  outfit  you're  to  travel  with  .  . 
and  here,"  he  was  rummaging  in  his  inside  pocket  .  .  "put  these  in 
your  pocket  and  keep  them  there  .  .  a  bunch  of  Masonic  cards  of 
the  lodge  your  daddy  belongs  to  .  .  if  you  ever  get  into  straits,  you'll 
stand  a  better  chance  of  being  helped,  as  son  of  a  Mason." 

"No,  Father,"  I  replied,  seriously  and  unhumorously,  "I  can't 
keep  them." 

"I'd  like  to  know  why  not.'"* 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  73 

"I  want  to  belong  to  the  brotherhood  of  man,  not  the  brotherhood 
of  the  Masons." 

He  looked  puzzled  for  a  moment,  then  his  countenance  cleared. 

"That's  all  right,  Son  .  .  you  just  keep  those  cards.  They 
might  come  in  handy  if  you  find  yourself  stranded  anywhere." 

When  my  father  turned  his  back,  with  a  thought  almost  pray- 
erful to  the  spirit  of  Shelley,  I  flung  the  Masonic  cards  overboard. 

After  dusk,  the  crew  poured  en  masse  to  the  nearest  waterfront 
saloon  with  me.     The  ten  dollars  didn't  last  long. 

•  •••••• 

"His  old  man  has  lots  of  money." 

Our  last  night  at  the  pier  was  a  night  of  a  million  stars. 

The  sailmaker,  with  whom  I  had  become  well  acquainted,  waddled 
up  to  me.  He  was  bow-legged.  He  waddled  instead  of  walked. 
We  sat  talking  on  the  foreward  hatch.   .   . 

"I'm  glad  we're  getting  off  to-morrow,"  I  remarked. 

" — we  might  not.    We  lack  a  man  for  the  crew  yet." 

" — thought  we  had  the  full  number?" 

"We  did.  But  one  of  the  boys  in  your  party  strayed  away  .  . 
went  to  another  saloon  and  had  a  few  more  drinks  .  .  and  someone 
stuck  him  with  a  knife  in  the  short  ribs  .  .  he's  in  the  hospital." 

"But  can't  Captain  Schantze  pick  up  another  man  right  away?" 

"The  consulate's  closed  till  ten  to-morrow  morning.  We're  to 
sail  at  five  .  .  so  he  can't  sign  on  a  new  sailor  before  .  .  of  course 
he  might  shanghai  someone  .  .  but  the  law's  too  severe  these  days  .  . 
and  the  Sailors'  Aid  Society  is  always  on  the  job  .  .  it  isn't  like 
it  used  to  be." 

But  in  spite  of  what  the  sailmaker  had  told  me,  the  captain 
decided  to  take  his  chance,  rather  than  delay  the  time  of  putting 
forth  to  sea.  Around  ten  o'clock,  in  the  full  of  the  moon,  a  night- 
hawk  cab  drew  up  alongside  the  ship  where  she  lay  docked,  and 
out  of  it  jumped  the  first  mate  and  the  captain  with  a  lad  who 
was  so  drunk  or  drugged,  or  both,  that  his  legs  went  down  under 
him  when  they  tried  to  set  him  on  his  feet. 

They  tumbled  him  aboard,  where  he  lay  in  an  insensate  heap, 
drooling  spit  and  making  incoherent,  bubbling  noises. 


74  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Without  lifting  an  eyebrow  in  surprise,  the  sailmaker  stepped 
forward  and  joined  the  mate  in  jerking  the  man  to  his  feet.  The 
captain  went  aft  as  if  it  was  all  in  the  day's  work. 

The  mate  and  the  sailmaker  jerked  the  shanghaied  man  forward 
and  bundled  him  into  a  locker  where  bits  of  rope  and  nautical  odds 
and  ends  were  piled,  just  forward  of  the  galley  . 

In  the  sharp  but  misty  dawn  we  cast  our  moorings  loose.  A 
busy  little  tug  nuzzled  up  to  take  us  in  tow  for  open  sea. 

We  were  all  intent  on  putting  forth,  when  a  cry  came  from  the 
port  side.  The  shanghaied  man  had  broken  out,  and  came  running 
aft  .  .  he  stopped  a  moment,  like  a  trapped  animal,  to  survey  the 
distance  between  the  dock  and  the  side  .  .  measuring  the  possibilities 
of  a  successful  leap. 

By  this  time  the  first  and  second  mates  were  after  him,  with 
some  of  the  men  .  .  he  ran  forward  again,  doubled  in  his  tracks 
like  a  schoolboy  playing  tag  .  .  we  laughed  at  that,  it  was  so  funny 
the  way  he  went  under  the  mate's  arm  .  .  the  look  of  surprise  on 
the  mate's  face  was  funny.  .  .  Then  the  man  who  was  pursued, 
in  a  flash,  did  a  hazardous  thing  .  .  he  flung  himself  in  the  air,  over 
the  starboard  side,  and  took  a  long  headlong  tumble  into  the 
tugboat.  .  . 

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  . 

He  was  tied  like  a  hog,  and  hauled  up  by  a  couple  of  ropes,  the 
sailmaker  singing  a  humorous  chantey  that  made  the  boys  laugh, 
as  they  pulled  away. 

This  delayed  the  sailing  anyhow.  The  mist  had  lifted  like  magic, 
and  we  were  not  far  toward  Staten  Island  before  we  knew  a  fine, 
blowing,  clear  day,  presided  over,  in  the  still,  upper  spaces,  by 
great,  leaning  cumulus  clouds.  They  toppled  huge  over  the  great- 
clustered  buildings  as  we  trod  outward  toward  the  harbour  mouth.  .  . 

The  pilot  swung  aboard.     The  voyage  was  begun. 

The  coast  of  America  now  looked  more  like  a  low-lying  fringe  of 
insubstantial  cloud  than  solid  land. 

My  heart  sank.  I  had  committed  myself  definitely  to  a  three- 
months'  sea-trip  .  .  there  was  no  backing  out,  it  was  too  far  to 
swim  ashore. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  75 

"What's  wrong,  Johann,"  asked  the  captain,  "are  you  sea-sick 
already?"     He  had  noticed  my  expression  as  he  walked  by. 

"No,  sir!" 

*'If  you  are,  it  isn't  anything  to  be  ashamed  of.  I've  known  old 
sea-captains  who  got  sea-sick  every  time  they  put  out  of  port." 

There  was  a  running  forward.  The  shanghaied  man  hove  in  sight, 
on  the  rampage  again.  He  came  racing  aft.  "I  must  speak  with 
the  captain." 

There  was  a  scuffle.  He  broke  away.  Again  the  two  mates 
were  close  upon  him.  Suddenly  he  flung  himself  down  and  both 
the  mates  tripped  over  him  and  went  headlong. 

The  captain  couldn't  help  laughing.  Then  he  began  to  swear  .  . 
"that  fellow's  going  to  give  us  a  lot  of  trouble,"  he  prophesied. 

Several  sailors,  grinning,  had  joined  in  the  chase.  They  had 
caught  the  fellow  and  were  dragging  him  forward  by  the  back  and 
scruff  of  the  neck,  while  he  deliberately  hung  limp  and  let  his  feet 
drag  as  if  paralysed  from  the  waist  down. 

The  captain  stood  over  the  group,  that  had  come  to  a  halt  below. 
The  captain  was  in  good  humour. 

"Bring  him  up  here." 

The  shanghaied  man  stood  facing  Schantze,  with  all  the  defer- 
ence of  a  sailor,  yet  subtly  defiant. 

The  captain  began  to  talk  in  German. 

"I  don't  speak  German,"  responded  the  sailor  stubbornly. 

Yet  it  was  in  German  that  he  had  called  out  he  must  see  the 
captain. 

This  did  not  make  the  captain  angry.  Instead,  like  a  vain  boy, 
he  began  in  French.  .  . 

"I  don't  speak  French  .  ."  again  objected  the  sailor,  still  in 
English. 

"Very  well,  we'll  speak  in  English,  then  .  .  bring  him  down  into 
the  cabin  .  ."  to  the  men  and  mates.  .  .  To  the  sailor  again,  "Come 
on,  Englishman!  (in  derision),  and  we'll  sign  you  on  in  the  ship's 
articles." 

They  haled  him  below.  The  captain  dismissed  the  sailors.  The 
captain,  the  two  mates  and  I,  were  alone  with  the  mutineer.  .  .  I 
stepped  into  the  pantry,  pretending  to  be  busy  with  the  dishes.  I 
didn't  want  to  miss  anything. 


76  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Now,"  explained  the  captain,  "what's  happened  has  happened  .  . 
it's  up  to  you  to  make  the  best  of  it  .  .  we  had  to  shanghai  you," 
and  he  explained  the  case  in  full  .  ,  and  if  he  would  behave  and  do 
his  share  of  the  work  with  the  rest  of  the  crew,  he  would  be  treated 
decently  and  be  paid  .  .  and  let  go,  if  he  wished,  when  the  Valkyrie 
reached  Sydney.  .  . 

"Now  sign,"  commanded  the  mate,  "I  never  heard  of  a  man  in 
your  fix  ever  being  treated  so  good  before." 

"But  I  won't  sign." 

"Damme,  but  you  will,"  returned  Miller,  the  first  mate,  who, 
though  German,  spoke  English  in  real  English  fashion — a  result, 
he  later  told  me,  of  fifteen  years'  service  on  English  boats.   .   . 

"Take  hold  of  him,  Stanger,"  this  to  the  second  mate,  a  lithe, 
sun-browned,  handsome  lad  who  knew  English  but  hated  to  speak  it. 

They  wrestled  about  the  cabin  at  a  great  rate  .  .  finally  they 
succeeded  in  forcing  a  pen  into  the  mutineer's  hand.  .  . 

Then  the  man  calmed  down,  apparently  whipped. 

"Very  well,  where  shall  I  sign?" 

"Da,"  pointed  the  captain  triumphantly,  pointing  the  line  out, 
with  his  great,  hairy  forefinger  .  .  and,  with  victory  near,  relapsing 
into  German. 

But,  just  as  it  reached  the  designated  spot,  the  fellow  gave  a 
violent  swish  with  the  pen.  The  mates  made  a  grab  for  his  hand, 
but  too  late.  He  tore  a  great,  ink-smeared  rent  through  the 
paper.  .  . 

Whang!  Captain  Schantze  caught  him  with  the  full  force  of  his 
big,  open  right  hand  on  the  left  side  of  his  face.  .  .  Whish!  Captain 
Schantze  caught  him  with  the  full  force  of  his  open  left,  on  the 
other  cheek! 

The  shanghaied  man  stiffened.     He  trembled  violently. 

**Do  it  a  thousand  times,  my  dear  captain.  I  won't  sign  till 
you  kill  me." 

*'Take  him  forward.  He'll  work,  and  work  hard,  without  signing 
on.  .  .  No,  wait  .  .  tie  him  up  to  the  rail  on  the  poop  .  .  twenty- 
four  hours  of  that,  my  man,  since  you  must  speak  English — ^willj 
make  you  change  your  mind." 

He  was  tied,  with  his  hands  behind  him. 

The  captain  paced  up  and  down  beside  him.. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  77 

Then  Franz  (as  I  afterward  learned  his  name)  boldly  began 
chaffing  the  "old  man"  .  .  first  in  English. 

"I  don't  understand,"  replied  Schantze;  he  was  playful  now,  as 
a  cat  is  with  a  mouse  .  .  or  rather,  like  a  big  boy  with  a  smaller 
boy  whom  he  can  bully.  y\ 

After  all,  Schantze  was  only  a  big,  good-natured  "kid"  of  thirtyT 

Then  Franz  ran  through  one  language  after  another  .  .  Spanish, 
Italian,  French.  .  . 

The  captain  noticed  me  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye.  His  big, 
broad  face  kindled  into  a  grin. 

"What  are  you  doing  here  on  deck,  you  rascal!"  He  gave  me 
an  affectionate,  rough  pull  of  the  ear. 

"Polishing  the  brass,  sir !" 

"And  taking  everything  in  at  the  same  time,  eh?  so  you  can 
write  a  poem  about  it?" 

His  vanity  flattered,  Schantze  began  answering  Franz  back,  and, 
to  and  fro  they  shuttled  their  tongues,  each  showing  off  to  the 
other — and  to  me,  a  mere  cabin  boy.  And  Franz,  for  the  moment, 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  how  he  had  been  dragged  aboard  .  .  and 
the  captain — that  Franz  was  a  mutineer,  tied  to  the  taffrail  for 
insubordination ! 

•  •••••• 

Sea-sickness  never  came  near  me.  Only  it  was  queer  to  feel  the 
footing  beneath  my  feet  rhythmically  rising  and  falling  .  .  for 
that's  the  way  it  seemed  to  my  land-legs.  But  then  I  never  was  very 
sturdy  on  my  legs  .  .  which  were  then  like  brittle  pipestems.  .  .  I 
sprawled  about,  spreading  and  sliding,  as  I  went  to  and  from  the 
galley,  bringing,  in  the  huge  basket,  the  breakfast,  dinner  and 
supper  for  the  cabin.  .  . 

The  sailors  called  me  "Albatross"  (from  the  way  an  albatross 
acts  when  sprawling  on  shipdeck).  They  laughed  and  poked  fun 
at  me. 

"Look  here,  you  Yankee  rascal,"  said  the  captain,  when  I  told 
him  I  never  drank.  .  .  "I  think  it  would  do  you  good  if  you  got  a 
little  smear  of  beer-froth  on  your  mouth  once  in  a  while  .  .  you'd 
stop  looking  leathery  like  a  mummy  .  .  you've  already  got  some 
wrinkles  on  your  face  .  .  a  few  good  drinks  would  plump  you  out, 
make  a  man  of  you. 


78  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"In  Germany  mothers  give  their  babies  a  sip  from  their  steins 
before  they  are  weaned  .  .  that's  what  makes  us  such  a  great 
nation." 

i.  If  I  didn't  drink,  at  least  the  two  mates  and  the  sailmaker  made 
up  for  me  .  .  we  had  on  board  many  cases  of  beer  stowed  away  down 
in  the  afterhold,  where  the  sails  were  stored.  And  next  to  the 
dining  room  there  was  the  space  where  provisions  were  kept — 
together  with  kegs  of  kiimmel,  and  French  and  Rhine  wines  and 
claret,  .  . 

And  before  we  had  been  to  sea  three  days  I  detected  a  conspiracy 
on  the  part  of  the  first  and  second  mates,  the  cook,  and  the  sail- 
maker — the  object  of  the  conspiracy  being,  apparently,  to  drink  half 
the  liquor  out  of  each  receptacle,  then  fill  the  depleted  cask  with 
hot  water,  shaking  it  up  thoroughly,  and  so  mixing  it. 

As  far  as  I  could  judge,  the  old,  bow-legged  sailmaker  had  taken 
out  a  monopoly  on  the  cases  of  beer  aft.  Never  were  sails  kept 
in  better  condition.    He  was  always  down  there,  singing  and  sewing. 

Several  times  I  saw  him  coming  up  whistling  softly  with  a  lush 
air  of  subdued  and  happy  reminiscence. 

Several  mornings  out  .  .  and  I  couldn't  believe  my  ears,  .  .  I 
heard  a  sound  of  music.  It  sounded  like  a  grind-organ  on  a  city 
street.  .  . 

The  Sunshine  of  Paradise  Alley. 

And  the  captain's  voice  was  booming  along  with  the  melody. 

I  peeked  into  Schantze's  cabin  to  announce  breakfast. 

He  had  a  huge  music  box  there.  And  he  was  singing  to  its  play- 
ing, and  dancing  clumsily  about  like  a  happy  young  mammoth. 

"Spying  on  the  'old  man,'  eh?" 

He  came  over  and  caught  me  by  an  ear  roughly  but  playfully. 

"No,  Captain,  I  was  only  saying  breakfast  is  ready." 

"You're  a  sly  one  .  .  do  you  like  that  tune?  The  Sunshine  of 
Paradise  Alley?     It's  my  favorite  Yankee  hymn." 

And  it  must  have  been;  every  morning  for  eighty-nine  days  the 
gaudy  music  box  faithfully  played  the  tune  over  and  over  again. 

The  ship  drifted  slowly  through  the  Sargasso  Sea — that  dead, 
sweltering  area  of  smooth  waters  and  endless  leagues  of  drifting 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  79 

seaweed.  .  .  Or  we  lifted  and  sank  on  great,  smooth  swells  .  .  the  last 
disturbance  of  a  storm  far  off  where  there  were  honest  winds  that 
blew. 


The  prickly  heat  assailed  us  .  .  hundreds  of  little  red,  biting 
pimples  on  our  bodies  .  .  the  cook's  fresh-baked  bread  grew  fuzz 
in  twenty-four  hours  after  baking  .  .  the  forecastle  and  cabin  jangled 
and  snarled  irritably,  like  tortured  animals.  .  . 


It  was  with  a  shout,  one  day,  that  we  welcomed  a  good  wind, 
and  shot  clear  of  this  dead  sea  of  vegetable  matter. 


As  we  crossed  the  equator  Father  Neptune  came  on  board  .  .  a 
curious  sea-ceremony  that  must  hark  back  to  the  Greeks  and 
Romans.  .  . 

The  bow-legged  sailmaker  played  Neptune. 

He  combed  out  a  beard  of  rope,  wrapped  a  sheet  around  his 
shoulders,  procured  a  trident  of  wood.   .   . 

"Come,"  shouted  one  of  the  sailors  to  me,  running  up  like  a  happy 
boy,  "come,  see  Neptune  climbing  on  board." 

The  sail-maker  pretended  to  mount  up  out  of  the  sea,  climbing 
over  the  forecastle  head — ^just  as  if  he  had  left  his  car  of  enormous, 
pearl-tinted  sea-shell,  with  the  spouting  dolphins  still  hitched  to  it, 
waiting  for  him,  while  he  paid  his  respects  to  our  captain. 

Captain  Schantze,  First  Mate  Miller,  Second  Mate  Stange,  stood 
waiting  the  ceremonial  on  the  officers'  bridge,  an  amused  smile  play- 
ing over  their  faces. 

A  big,  boy-faced  sailor  named  Klaus,  and  the  ship's  blacksmith, 
a  grey-eyed,  sandy-haired  fellow  named  Klumpf,  followed  the  sail- 
maker  close  behind,  as  he  swept  along  in  his  regalia,  solemnly  and 
majestically.  And  Klaus  beat  a  triangle.  And  Klumpf  played  an 
accordion. 

"Sailmaker"  (the  only  name  he  was  called  by  on  the  ship)  made 
a  grandiose  speech  to  the  Captain. 

Schantze  replied  in  the  same  vein,  beginning, 

"Euer  Majestat " 


80  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  sailors  marched  forward  again,  to  their  music,  like  pleased 
children.  For  custom  was  that  they  should  have  plum  duff  this 
day,  and  plenty  of  hot  grog.   .   . 

Before  I  was  aware,  I  was  caught  up  by  several  arms. 

For  I  had  never  before  crossed  the  line.     So  I  must  be  initiated. 

They  set  me  on  a  board,  over  a  great  barrel  of  sea-water. 

Klumpf  gave  me  a  mock-shave  with  a  vile  mixture  of  tar  and  soap. 
He  used  a  great  wooden  razor  about  three  feet  long.  The  officers 
shouted  and  laughed,  looking  on  from  the  bridge. 

"What's  your  name,  my  boy?"  asked  Father  Neptune. 

"John  Greg — "  Before  I  could  articulate  fully  the  blacksmith 
thrust  a  gob  of  the  vile  lather  into  my  mouth.  As  I  spluttered 
and  spit  everyone  gave  shouts  of  laughter.  One  or  two  sailors 
rolled  on  the  deck,  laughing,  as  savages  are  said  to  do  when  over- 
taken with  humour. 

The  board  on  which  I  sat  was  jerked  from  under  me.  Once,  two 
times,  three  times,  I  was  pushed,  almost  bent  double,  far  down  into 
the  barrel  of  sea-water.     It  was  warm,  at  least. 

Then  a  hue  and  cry  went  up  for  Franz.  He  was  caught.  He 
swore  that  he  had  crossed  the  line  before,  as  doubtless  he  had.  But 
there  was  now  a  sort  of  quiet  feud  between  him  and  the  rest  aboard. 
So  in  a  tumbling  heap,  they  at  last  bore  him  over.  He  fought  and 
shrieked.  And  because  he  did  not  submit  and  take  the  ceremony 
good-naturedly,  he  was  treated  rather  roughly. 

My  certificate  of  initiation  was  handed  me  formally  and  solemnly. 
It  was  a  semi-legal  florid  document,  sealed  with  a  bit  of  rope  and 
tar.  It  certified  that  I  had  crossed  the  line.  The  witnesses  were 
"The  Mainmast,"  "The  Mizzen  Mast,"  and  other  inanimate  ship's 
parts  and  objects.  .  . 

"Keep  this,"  said  Sailmaker,  as  he  handed  it  to  me,  "as  evidence 
that  you  have  already  crossed  the  line,  and  you  will  never  be  shaved 
with  tar  and  a  wooden  razor  again.  You  are  now  a  full-fledged 
son  of  Neptune." 

On  a  ship  at  sea  where  the  work  to  do  never  ends,  it  is  a  serious! 
matter  if  one  of  the  crew  does  not  know  his  work,  or  fails  to  hold  up] 
his  end.  That  means  that  there  is  so  much  more  work  to  be  donej 
by  the  others. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  81 

Franz  deliberately  shirked.  And,  as  far  as  I  could  see,  he  pur- 
posely got  in  bad  with  the  mates,  under  whom  he  had  approximately 
sixty  days  more  of  pulling  and  hauling,  going  up  aloft,  scrubbing, 
and  chipping  to  do.  I  was  puzzled  at  the  steadfast,  deliberate 
malingering  of  the  man.  The  crew  all  hated  him,  too.  I  have  seen 
the  man  at  the  wheel  deliberately  deflect  the  ship  from  its  course,  in 
order  to  bring  the  wind  against  the  mutineer's  belly,  hoping  to  have 
him  blown  overboard  while  he  was  running  aloft.  .  . 

And  one  night,  in  the  forecastle,  someone  hurled  a  shoe  at  him. 
A  blow  so  savagely  well-aimed,  that  when  he  came  running  aft, 
howling  with  pain  (for,  for  all  his  obstinacy,  he  seemed  to  lack 
courage) — to  complain  of  the  outrage,  to  Schantze — his  eye  popped 
out  so  far  that  it  seemed  as  if  leaping  out  of  its  socket!  It  was 
ghastly  and  bloody  like  a  butchered  heart. 

Later,  I  asked  the  sailors  why  this  had  been  done  to  Franz.  And 
Klumpf  said — 

"We  had  a  scuffle  over  something.  We  were  all  taking  it  friendly 
.  .  and  Franz  bit  Klaus  through  the  hand,  almost  .  .  then  someone 
threw  a  shoe  and  hit  him  in  the  eye".  .  . 

In  about  a  week,  after  his  eye  had  healed  just  a  little,  I  drew 
Franz  apart.  We  sat  down  together  on  the  main  hatch.  I  was 
worried  about  him.  I  did  not  understand  him.  I  was  sorry  for 
him. 

"Look  here,  Franz  .  .  don't  you  know  you  might  get  put  clean 
out  of  business  if  you  keep  this  mutiny  of  one  up  much  longer? 
You  can't  whip  a  whole  ship's  crew." 

"I  don't  want  to  whip  a  whole  ship's  crew." 

*'The  captain  had  to  have  another  man  in  a  hurry,  you  know  .  . 
but  he's  really  willing  to  give  you  decent  treatment." 

"Did  the  captain  send  you  to  tell  me  this.?" 

"Of  course  not  .  .  only  I'm  sorry  for  you." 

Franz  gave  me  a  broad,  inexplicable  wink.  He  smiled  gro- 
tesquely— from  swollen  lips  made  more  grotesque  because  of  a  recent 
punch  in  the  mouth  "Sailmaker"  had  fetched  him.  .  . 

"Don't  trouble  yourself  about  me.  I  know  what  I'm  doing,  my 
boy." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean  that,  as  soon  as  I  came  out  of  my  drunk,  and  found 


82  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

myself  shanghaied,  I  wanted  them  to  ill-treat  me  .  .  there's  a  Sail- 
ors' Aid  Society  at  Sydney,  you  know !" 

"What  good  will  the  Sailors'  Aid  Society  do  you?" 

"You  just  wait  and  see  what  good  it  will  do  me!" 

"Nonsense,  Franz !  The  captain's  willing  to  pay  you  off  at 
Sydney." 

"Pay  me  off,  eh?  Yes,  and  the  old  boy  will  pay  me  handsome 
damages,  too !  .  .  the  sentimental  old  ladies  that  have  nothing  else 
to  do  but  befriend  the  poor  abused  sailor,  will  see  to  it  that  I  find 
justice  in  the  courts  there." 

"You  have  a  good  case  against  the  captain  as  it  is,  then.  Why 
don't  you  turn  to  and  behave  and  be  treated  decently?" 

"No,"  he  replied,  with  a  curious  note  of  strength  in  his  voice, 
"the  worse  I'm  treated  the  more  damages  I  can  collect.  I'm  going 
to  make  it  a  real  case  of  brutal  treatment  before  I  leave  this  old 
tub." 

"But  they — they'll — they  might  kill  you !" 

"Not  much  .  .  those  days  are  about  gone  .  .  for  a  man  who 
knows  how  to  handle  himself,  as  I  do.  .  . 

"Well,  let  us  thank  God,"  he  finished,  "for  the  Sailors'  Aid  Society 
and  the  dear  old  maids  at  Sydney !" 

I  walked  off,  thinking.  Franz  had  sworn  me  not  to  tell.  Yet 
I  was  tempted  to.      It  would  get  me  in  right  with  Captain  Schantze. 

We  shaped  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  with  great,  southern  jumps. 
We  were  striking  far  south  for  the  strong,  steady  winds. 

"There  was  a  damned  English  ship,  the  Lord  Summerville,  that 
left  New  York  about  the  same  time  we  did  .  .  she's  a  sky-sailer 
we  mustn't  let  her  beat  us  into  Sydney." 

"Why  not.  Captain?" 

"An  Englishman  beat  a  German !"  the  captain  spat,  "fui !  We're 
going  to  beat  England  yet  at  everything  .  .  already  we're  taking 
their  world-trade  away  from  them  .  .  and  some  day  we'll  beat  them 
at  sea  and  on  land,  both." 

"In  a  war,  sir?" 

"Yes,  in  a  war  .  .  in  a  great,  big  war !  It  will  have  to  come  to 
that,  Johann,  my  boy." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  83 

The  cook's  opinion  on  the  same  subject  was  illuminating. 

He  told  me  many  anecdotes  which  tended  to  prove  that  even  Eng- 
land's colonies  were  growing  tired  of  her  arrogance:  he  related 
droll  stories  told  him  by  Colonials  about  the  Queen  .  .  obscene  and 
nasty  they  were,  too. 

"Catch  a  German  talking  that  way  about  the  Kaiserin!" 

The  old  cook  couldn't  realize  a  peculiarity  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
temperament — that  those  they  rail  against  and  jibe  at  they  love 
the  most ! 

Off  the  Tristan  da  Cunha  Islands  we  ran  head-on  into  a  terrific 
storm  .  .  one  that  lasted  forty-eight  hours  or  more,  with  rushing, 
screaming  winds,  and  steady,  stinging  blasts  of  sleet  that  came 
thick  in  successions  of  driving,  grey  cloud. 

It  was  then  that  we  lost  overboard  a  fine,  handsome  young  Saxon, 
one  Gottlieb  Kampke: 

Five  men  aloft  .  .  only  four  came  down  .  .  Kampke  was  blown 
overboard  off  the  footrope  that  ran  under  the  yard,  as  he  stood 
there  hauling  in  on  the  sail.  For  he  was  like  a  young  bull  in 
strength;  and,  scorning,  in  his  strength,  the  tearing  wind,  he  used 
to  heave  in  with  both  hands  .  .  not  holding  fast  at  all,  no  matter 
how  hard  the  wind  tore. 

It  was  all  that  the  ship  herself  could  do,  to  live.  Already  two 
lifeboats  had  been  bashed  in.  And  the  compass  stanchioned  on  the 
bridge  had  gone  along  with  a  wave,  stanchions  and  all. 

There  was  no  use  trying  to  rescue  Gottlieb  Kampke.  Besides, 
he  would  be  dead  as  soon  as  he  reached  the  water,  in  such  a  boiling 
sea,  the  captain  said  to  me. 

The  melancholy  cry,  "Man  overboard!"  .  .  . 

I  took  oath  that  if  I  ever  reached  home  alive,  I  would  never  go 
to  sea  again.  If  I  just  got  home,  alive,  I  would  be  willing  even 
to  tie  up  brown  parcels  in  grocery  cord,  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  to 
sweep  out  a  store  day  after  day,  regularly  and  monotonously,  in 
safety !  .  .  . 

The  captain  saw  me  trembling  with  a  nausea  of  fear.  And,  with 
the  winds  booming  from  all  sides,  the  deck  as  slippery  as  the  body 
of  a  live  eel,  he  gave  me  a  shove  far  out  on  the  slant  of  the  poop.     I 


84  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

sped  in  the  grey  drive  of  sleet  clear  to  the  rail.  The  ship  dipped 
under  as  a  huge  wave  smashed  over,  all  fury  and  foam,  overwhelm- 
ing the  helmsman  and  bearing  down  on  me.  .  . 

It  was  miraculous  that  I  was  not  swept  overboard. 

After  that,  strangely,  I  no  longer  feared,  but  enjoyed  a  quick- 
ening of  pulse.  And  I  gladly  took  in  the  turns  in  the  rope  as  the 
men  sang  and  heaved  away  .  .  waves  would  heap  up  over  us.  We 
would  hold  tight  till  we  emerged  again.  Then  again  we  would  shout 
and  haul  away. 

*'It's  all  according  to  what  you  grow  used  to,"  commented  the 
captain. 

•  •••••• 

By  the  time  I  was  beginning  to  look  into  the  face  of  danger  as  into 
a  mother's  face,  the  weather  wore  down.  The  ocean  was  still  heavy 
with  running  seas,  but  we  rode  high  and  dry, 

•  •••••• 

Unlucky  Kampke! 

His  shipmates  bore  his  dunnage  aft,  for  the  captain  to  take  in 
charge.  And,  just  as  in  melodramas  and  popular  novels,  a  picture 
of  a  fair-haired  girl  was  found  at  the  bottom  of  his  sea-chest,  to- 
gether with  one  of  his  mother  .   .  his  sweetheart  and  his  mother.  .  . 

Depositions  were  taken  down  from  his  forecastle  mates,  as  to  his 
going  overboard,  and  duly  entered  into  the  log  .  .  and  the  captain 
wrote  a  letter  to  his  mother,  to  be  mailed  to  her  from  Sydney. 

For  a  day  we  were  sad.  An  imminent  sense  of  mortality  hung 
over  us. 

But  there  broke,  the  next  morning,  a  clear  sky  of  sunshine  and 
an  open  though  still  yesty  sea — and  we  sang,  and  became  thought- 
less and  gay  again. 

"Yes,"  sighed  the  cook,  "I  wish  it  had  been  Franz  instead  of 
Gottlieb.  Gottlieb  was  such  a  fine  fellow,  and  Franz  is  such  a  son 
of  a .» 

•  •••••• 

...  I  have  left  something  out. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  voyage  Captain  Schantze  housed  a  flock 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  85 

of  two  dozen  chickens  in  a  coop  under  the  forecastle  .  .  in  order  to 

insure  himself  of  fresh  eggs  during  the  voyage.   .  . 

And  for  fresh  meat,  he  had  a  huge  sow  hauled  aboard — to  be 
killed  later  on.  .  . 

One  morning,  when  I  went  forward  to  fetch  the  captain's  and 
mates'  breakfast,  I  found  the  cook  all  white  and  ghastly.  .  . 

"What's  the  matter,  Cook?" 

"To-day's  the  day  I've  got  to  butcher  the  sow,"  he  complained, 
"and  I'd  give  anything  to  have  someone  else  do  it.  .  .  I've  made 
such  a  pet  of  her  during  the  voyage  .  .  and  she's  so  intelligent  and 
affectionate  .  .   she's  decenter  than  lots  of  human  beings  I've  met." 

I  kept  to  the  cabin  while  the  butchering  was  going  on. 

The  cook,  the  next  day,  with  tears  streaming  down  his  face,  told 
me  how  trusting  the  sow  had  been  to  the  last  moment.  .  . 

"I'll  never  forget  the  look  in  her  eyes  when  she  realised  what  I 
had  done  to  her  when  I  cut  her  throat." 

"And  I'll  never  be  able  to  eat  any  of  her.  I'd  throw  it  up  as  fast 
as  it  went  down  .  .  much  as  I  do  like  good,  fresh  pork." 

The  ship-boys,  Karl  and  Albert,  always  stole  the  eggs,  the  cap- 
tain was  sure,  as  soon  as  they  were  laid,  though  he  was  never  able 
to  catch  them  at  it. 

"Run,"  he  would  shout  hurriedly  to  me,  "there !  I  hear  the  hens 
cackling.     They've  laid  an  egg." 

I'd  run.  But  there'd  be  no  egg.  Someone  would  have  reached 
the  nest,  from  the  forecastle,  before  I  did. 

Because  the  eggs  were  always  stolen  as  soon  as  laid,  the  captain 
decreed  the  slaughter  of  the  hens,  too  .  .  not  a  rooster  among  them 
.  .  the  hens  were  frankly  unhappy,  because  of  this.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

The  last  hen  was  to  be  slain.  Pursued,  she  flew  far  out  over  the 
still  ocean.  Further  and  further  she  flew,  keeping  up  her  heavy 
body  as  if  by  an  effort  of  will. 

"Come  back!  Don't  be  such  a  damn  fool!"  I  shouted  in  my  ex- 
citement. 

Everybody  was  watching  when  the  chicken  would  light  .  .  how 
long  it  could  keep  up.  .  . 

As  soon  as  I  shouted  "come  back !"  the  bird,  as  if  giving  heed  to 


86  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

my  exhortation,  slowly  veered,  and  turned  toward  the  ship  again. 
Everybody  had  laughed  till  they  nearly  sank  on  deck,  at  my  naive 
words. 

Now  a  spontaneous  cheer  went  up,  as  the  hen  slowly  tacked  and 
started  back.  .  . 

It  was  still  weather,  but  the  ship  was  moving  ahead.  .  . 

"She  won't  make  it !" 

"She  will !" 

Another  great  shout.  She  lit  astern,  right  by  the  wheel. 
Straightway  she  began  running  forward,  wings  spread  in  genuine 
triumph. 

"Catch  her !"  shouted  the  mate. 

Nobody  obeyed  him;  they  stood  by  laughing  and  cheering,  till 
the  hen  made  safety  beneath  the  forecastle  head. 

She  was  spared  for  three  days. 

"If  you  ever  tell  the  captain  on  us,"  First  Mate  Miller  threat- 
ened, as  he  and  the  second  mate  stood  over  a  barrel  of  Kiimmel,  mix- 
ing hot  water  with  it,  to  fill  up  for  what  they  had  stolen,  "if  you 
ever  tell,  I'll  see  that  you  go  overboard — by  accident  .  .  when  we 
clear  for  Iqueque,  after  we  unload  at  Sydney." 
"Why  should  I  tell?  It's  none  of  my  business!" 
I  had  come  upon  them,  as  they  were  at  work.  The  cook  had  sent 
me  into  the  store-room  for  some  potatoes. 

Miller,  the  first  mate,  was  quite  fat  and  bleary-eyed.  He  used 
to  go  about  sweating  clear  through  his  clothes  on  warm  days.  At 
such  times  I  could  detect  the  faint  reek  of  alcohol  coming  through 
his  pores.     It's  a  wonder  Schantze  didn't  notice  it,  as  I  did. 

Sometimes,  at  meals,  the  captain  would  swear  and  say,  sniffing 
at  the  edge  of  his  glass,  "What's  the  matter  with  this  damned 
brandy  .  .  it  tastes  more  like  water  than  a  good  drink  of  liquor." 

As  he  set  his  glass  down  in  disgust,  the  mates  would  solemnly 
and  hypocritically  go  through  the  same  operation,  and  express  their 
wonder  with  the  captain's. 

Finally  one  of  the  latter  would  remark  sagely,  "they  always  try 
to  palm  off  bad  stuff'  on  ships.'* 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  87 

In  spite  of  my  fear  of  the  mates,  I  once  had  to  stuff  a  dirty  dish- 
rag  down  my  mouth  to  keep  from  laughing  outright.  The  greasy 
rag  made  me  gag  and  almost  vomit. 

"And  what's  the  matter  with  you?"  inquired  Schantze,  glaring 
into  the  pantry  at  me,  while  the  two  mates  also  glowered,  for  da 
different  reason. 

"You  skinny  Yankee,"  said  the  captain,  taking  me  by  the  ear, 
rather  painfully,  several  days  after  that  incident,  "I'm  sure  some- 
one's drinking  my  booze.  Could  it  be  you,  in  spite  of  all  your  talk 
about  not  drinking  ?     You  Anglo-Saxons  are  such  dirty  hypocrites." 

"Indeed,  no,  sir, — it  isn't  me." 

*'Well,  this  cabin's  in  your  care,  and  so  is  the  storeroom.  You 
keep  a  watch-out  and  find  out  for  me  who  it  is.  .  .  I  don't  think 
its  Miller  or  the  second  mate  .  .  it  must  be  either  the  cook  or  that 
old  rogue  of  a  sailmaker.  .  . 

"Or  it  might  be  some  of  the  crew,"  he  further  speculated,  "but 
anyhow,  it's  your  job  to  take  care  of  the  cabin,  as  I  said  be- 
fore. .  . 

"Remember  this — all  sailors  are  thieves,  aboard  ship,  if  the 
chance  to  take  anything  good  to  eat  or  drink  comes  their  way." 

I  promised  to  keep  a  good  look-out. 

On  the  other  hand.  .  . 

"Mind  you  keep  your  mouth  shut  .  .  and  don't  find  things  so 
damned  funny,  neither,"  this  from  the  first  mate,  early  one  morn- 
ing, as  I  scrubbed  the  floors.  He  stirred  my  posteriors  heavily 
with  a  booted  foot,  in  emphasis. 

The  sea.  kicked  backward  in  long,  speedy  trails  of  foam,  lacing 
the  surface  of  a  grey-green  waste  of  waves.  .  . 

When  I  had  any  spare  time,  I  used  to  lie  in  the  net  under  the 
bowsprit,  and  read.  From  there  I  could  look  back  on  the  entire 
ship  as  it  sailed  ahead,  every  sail  spread,  a  magnificent  sight. 

One  day,  as  I  lay  there,  reading  Shelley,  or  was  it  my  Vergil  that 
I  was  puzzling  out  line  by  line,  with  occasional  glances  at  the 
great  ship  seeming  to  sail  into  me — myself  poised  outward  in 
space 

There  came  a  great  surge  of  water.     I  leaped  up  in  the  net, 


88  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

bouncing  liko  i  circus  acrobat.  My  book  fell  out  of  my  hand  into 
the  sea. 

I  looked  up,  and  saw  fully  half  the  crew  grinning  down  at  me. 
The  mate  stood  over  me.  A  bucket  that  still  dripped  water  in  his 
hand  showed  me  where  the  water  had  come  from. 

"Come  up  out  of  there!  The  captain's  been  bawling  for  you 
for  half  an  hour  .  .  we  thought  you'd  gone  overboard." 

I  came  along  the  net,  drenched  and  forlorn. 

"What  in  hell  were  you  doing  down  there.'"' 

"I — I  was  thinking,"  I  stammered. 

"He  was  thinking,"  echoed  the  mate  scornfully.  "Well,  thinking 
will  never  make  a  sailor  of  you." 

Boisterous  laughter. 

"After  this  do  your  thinking  where  we  can  find  you  when  you're 
wanted." 

As  I  walked  aft,  the  mate  went  with  me  pace  for  pace,  poking  more 
fun  at  me.  To  which  I  dared  not  answer,  as  I  was  impelled,  because 
he  was  strong  and  I  was  very  frail  .  .  and  always,  when  on  the 
verge  of  danger,  or  a  physical  encounter,  the  memory  of  my  Uncle 
Lan's  beatings  would  now  crash  into  my  memory  like  an  earthquake, 
and  render  my  resolution  and  sinews  all  a-tremble  and  unstrung. 

I  was  of  a  mind  to  tell  the  captain  who  was  drinking  his  liquor 
— ^but  here  again  I  feared,  and  cursed  myself  for  fearing. 

When  the  mate  told  him  of  where  he  had  found  me,  at  last — ^what 
he  had  done — what  I  had  said — Schantze  laughed.  .  . 

But,  later  on,  he  sympathised  with  me  and  unexpectedly  remarked : 

"Johann,  how  can  you  expect  a  heavy-minded  numbskull  like 
Miller  to  understand!" 

Then,  laughing,  he  seized  me  by  the  ear — ^his  usual  gesture  of 
fondness  for  me 

"Remember  me  if  you  ever  write  a  book  about  this  voyage,  and 
don't  give  me  too  black  a  name!    I'm  not  so  bad,  am  I,  eh?" 

The  Australian  coast  had  lain  blue  across  the  horizon  for  several 
days. 

"Watch  me  to-morrow!"  whispered  Franz  cryptically  to  me  as    | 
he  strolled  lazily  by.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  89 

Next  day,  around  noon,  I  heard  a  big  rumpus  on  the  main  deck. 
I  hurried  up  from  the  cabin. 

There  lay  Franz,  sprawled  on  his  back  like  a  huge,  lazy  dog, 
and  the  mate  was  shaking  his  belly  with  his  foot  on  top  of  it,  just 
as  one  plays  with  a  dog  .  .  but  to  show  he  was  not  playing,  he 
delivered  the  prostrate  form  of  the  sailor  a  swift  succession  of 
kicks  in  the  ribs.  .  . 

"You  won't  work  any  longer,  you  say?" 

"No." 

**I'll  kick  your  guts  out." 

"Very  well." 

"Stand  on  your  feet  like  a  man." 

"What  for?  You'll  only  knock  me  down  again!"  and  Franz 
grinned  comically  and  grotesquely  upward,  through  the  gap  in 
his  mouth  where  two  of  his  teeth  had  been  punched  out  earlier  in 
the  voyage. 

It  was  easy  to  see  that  Franz's  curious  attitude  of  non-resistance 
had  the  mate  puzzled  what  to  do  next.  All  the  sailors  indulged 
in  furtive  laughter.  None  of  them  had  a  very  deep-rooted  love 
for  Miller,  and,  for  the  first  time,  they  rather  sympathised  with  the 
man  who  had  been  shanghaied  .  .  some  of  them  even  snickered 
audibly  .  .  and  straightway  grew  intent  on  their  work.  .  . 

Miller  turned  irritably  on  them.  "And  what's  the  matter  with 
you!"  .  . 

"Bring  him  up  here!"  shouted  Captain  Schantze. 

Four  sailors  picked  Franz  up  and  carried  him,  unresisting,  bump- 
ing his  back  on  the  steps  as  he  sagged  like  a  sack  half  full  of 
flour.  .  . 

"Here !  I've  had  about  enough  of  this  !"  cried  the  captain,  furious, 
"tie  him  to  the  rail  again!  .  ." 

"Now,  we'll  leave  you  there,  on  bread  and  water,  till  you  say 
you'll  work." 

"What  does  it  matter  what  you  do,"  sauced  Franz;  "we'll  be  in 
port  in  four  days  .  .  and  then  you'll  see  what  I'll  do !" 

"What's  that?"  cried  the  captain.  Then  catching  an  inkling  of 
Franz's  scheme,  he  hit  the  man  a  quick,  hard  blow  in  the  mouth  with 
his  clenched  fist. 

"Give  him  another !"  urged  the  mate. 


90  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

But  the  captain's  rage  was  over,  though  Franz  sent  him  a 
bold,  mocking  laugh,  even  as  the  blood  trickled  down  in  a  tiny 
red  stream  from  where  his  mouth  had  been  struck. 

I  never  saw  such  courage  of  its  kind. 

They  left  him  there  for  ten  hours.  But  he  stood  without  a  sign 
of  exhaustion  or  giving  in.  And  they  untied  him.  And  let  him 
loose. 

And,  till  we  hove  to  at  Dalghety's  Wharf,  in  Sydney  Harbour, 
unnoticed,  Franz,  the  Alsace-Lorrainer,  roamed  the  boat  at  will, 
like  a  passenger. 

"Wait  till  I  get  on  shore  .  .  this  little  shanghaiing  party  of  the 
captain's  will  cost  him  a  lot  of  hard  money,"  he  said,  in  a  low  voice, 
to  me, — standing  idly  by,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  while  I  was 
bending  over  the  brass  on  the  bridge  railing,  polishing  away. 

"But  they've  nearly  killed  you,  Franz  .  .  will  it  be  worth  it.'"' 

"All  I  can  say  is  I  wish  they'd  use  me  rougher." 

"You  know,  Franz,  I'm  not  a  bit  sorry  for  you  now  .  .  I  was 
at  first." 

"That  so?  .  .  I  don't  need  anybody  to  be  sorry  for  me.  In  a 
week  or  so,  when  I  have  won  my  suit  against  the  captain  through 
the  Sailors'  Aid  Society,  I'll  be  rolling  in  money  .  .  then  you  can 
be  sorry  for  the  captain." 

•  •  •  •  •  •  •      ' 

Sydney  Harbour  .  .  the  air  alive  with  sunlight  and  white  flutterings 
of  sea  gulls  a-wing  .  .  alive  with  pleasure  boats  that  leaned  here 
and  yon  on  white  sails. 

•  •••••• 

Now  that  we  were  safe  in  harbour,  I  hesitated  whether  to  run 
away  or  continue  with  the  ship.  For  I  had  signed  on  to  complete 
the  voyage,  via  Iqueque,  on  the  West  Coast  of  South  America,  to 
Hamburg.  .  .  I  hesitated,  I  say,  because,  on  shipboard,  you're  at 
least  sure  of  food  and  a  place  to  sleep.  .  . 

Karl  and  I  had  been  set  to  work  at  giving  the  cabin  a  thorough 
overhauling.  We  fooled  away  much  of  our  time  looking  into  the 
captain's  collections  of  erotic  pictures  and  photographs  .  .  and  his 
obscene  books  in  every  language. 

And  we  discovered  under  the  sofa-seat  that  was  built  against 
the  side,  a  great  quantity  of  French  syrups  and  soda  waters.     So 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  91 

we  spent  quite  a  little  of  our  time  in  mixing  temperance  drinks 
for  ourselves. 

Cautiously  I  spoke  to  the  cook  about  what  Karl  and  I  were 
doing.  For  he  knew,  of  course,  that  I  knew  of  his  marauding  .  . 
and  of  the  mates'  and  sailmaker's  .  .  so  it  was  safe  to  tell  him. 

"You'd  better  be  careful,"  the  cook  admonished  me. 

"But  what  could  Captain  Schantze  want  with  so  many  bottles 
of  syrup  and  soda  water  aboard?" 

"The  English  custom's  officer  who  comes  aboard  here  is  an  old 
friend  of  Schantze's,  and  a  teetotaler  .  .  so  the  captain  always 
treats  him  to  soda  water." 

"But  Karl  and  I  have  drunk  it  all  up  already,"  I  confessed  slowly. 

"You'll  both  catch  a  good  hiding  then  when  he  calls  for  it 
and  finds  there  is  none." 

The  next  day  the  customs  man  came  aboard. 

"Have  a  drink,  Mr.  Wollaston?"  Schantze  asked  him. 

"Yes,  but  nothing  strong,"  for  probably  the  tenth  occasion  came 
the  answer. 

Then  offhandedly,  the  captain — as  if  he  h^,d  not,  perhaps,  said 
the  same  thing  for  ten  previous  voyages :  "I  have  some  fine  French 
soda  water  and  syrup  in  my  private  locker,  perhaps  you'd  like  some 
of  that,  Mr.  Wollaston?" 

Mr.  Wollaston,  whose  face  and  nose  was  so  ruddy  and  pimply 
anyone  would  take  him  for  a  toper,  answers:  "Yes,  a  little  of  that 
won't  do  any  harm,  Captain!" 

"Karl! — Johann!"  We  had  been  listening,  frightened,  to  the 
colloquy.     We  came  out,  trembling. 

"Look  under  the  cushions  in  my  cabin  .  .  bring  out  some  of  the 
syrup  and  soda  water  you  find  there." 

"Very  well,  sir!" 

We  both  hurried  in  .  .  stood  facing  each  other,  too  scared  to  laugh 
at  the  situation.  The  captain  had  a  heavy  hand — and  carried  a 
heavy  cane  when  he  went  ashore.     He  had  the  cane  with  him  now. 

After  a  long  time :    "You  tell  him  there  is  none,"  whispered  Karl. 

"Well,  what's  wrong  in  there?"  cried  Schantze  impatiently. 

"We  can't  find  a  single  bottle,  sir!"  I  repeated,  louder. 

"What?     Come  out  here!     Speak  louder!     What  did  you  say?" 

"We  can't  find  a  single  bottle,  sir !"  I  murmured,  almost  inaudibly. 


92  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Then  Karl,  stammering,  reinforced  me  with,  "There  are  a  lot  of 
empty  bottles  here,  sir !" 

*'What  does  this  mean?  Every  voyage  for  years  I  have  had 
soda  and  French  syrup  in  my  locker  for  Mr.  Wollaston." 

"Oh,  don't  mind  me,"  deprecated  the  little  customs  man,  at  the 
same  time  as  furious  as  his  host. 

Karl  had  already  began  to  blubber  in  anticipation  of  the 
whipping  due.  The  captain  laid  his  heavy  cane  on  everywhere. 
The  boy  fell  at  his  feet,  bawling  louder,  less  from  fear  than  from 
the  knowledge  that  his  abjectness  would  please  the  captain's 
vanity  and  induce  him  to  let  up  sooner. 

"Now  you  come  here!"  Schantze  beckoned  me. 

He  raised  the  cane  at  me.  But,  to  my  own  surprise,  something 
brave  and  strange  entered  into  me.  I  would  not  be  humiliated 
before  a  countryman  of  my  mother's,  that  was  what  it  was ! 

I  looked  the  captain  straight  in  the  eye. 

"Sir,  I  did  not  do  it,  and  I  won't  be  whipped !" 

*'Wha-at !"  ejaculated  Schantze,  astonished  at  my  novel  behaviour. 

*'I  didn't  touch  the  syrup."  Karl  looked  at  me,  astonished  and 
incredulous  at  my  audacity,  through  his  tear-stained  face. 

The  captain  stepped  back  from  me. 

I  must  be  telling  the  truth  to  be  behaving  so  differently. 

"Get  to  your  bunk  then!"  he  commanded. 

I  obeyed. 

"Who  is  he  ?"  .  .  I  heard  the  little  customs  man  ask  the  skipper ; 
"he  doesn't  talk  like  an  Englishman." 

"He  isn't.  He  just  a  damn-fool  Yankee  boy  I  picked  up  in 
New  York." 


They  had  rounded  Franz  up  and  locked  him  away.  The  captain 
was  determined  to  frustrate  his  little  scheme  for  reimbursement, 
which  he  had  by  this  time  guessed. 

I  lie.     I  must  tell  the  truth  in  these  memoirs. 

I  had  told  on  him. 

But  my  motive  was  only  an  itch  to  see  what  would  then  take] 
place.     But  when  I  saw  that  the  issue  would  be  an  obvious  one: 
that  he  would  merely  be  spirited  forth  to  sea  again,  and  this  time,] 
forced  to  work,  I  felt  a  little  sorry  for  the  man.    At  the  same  time,] 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  93 

I  admit  I  wanted  to  observe  the  denouement  myself,  of  his  case  .  . 
and  as  I  now  intended  to  desert  the  ship,  it  would  have  to  take  place 
in  Sydney. 

So,  on  the  second  night  of  Franz's  incarceration,  when  nearly 
everybody  was  away  on  shore-leave,  I  took  the  captain's  bunch 
of  keys,  and  I  let  the  shanghaied  man,  the  mutineer,  the  man  from 
Alsace-Lorraine — out ! 

It  was  not  a  very  dark  night.  Franz  stole  along  like  a  rat  till 
he  reached  the  centre  of  the  dock.  There  he  gave  a  great  shout  of 
defiance  .  .  why,  I  learned  later.  .  . 

The  Lord  Summerville,  which  had,  after  all,  beat  us  in  by  two 
days,  despite  Captain  Schantze's  boast,  was  lying  on  the  other 
side  of  our  dock.  And  her  mate  and  several  sailors  thus  became 
witnesses  of  what  happened. 

The  shout  brought,  of  course,  our  few  men  who  remained  on 
watch,  on  deck,  and  over  on  the  dock  after  Franz  .  .  who  allowed 
himself  to  be  caught  .  .  the  dock  was  English  ground  .  .  the  ship  was 
German  .  .  a  good  point  legally,  as  the  canny  Franz  had  foreseen. 

His  clothes  were  almost  torn  from  his  body. 

Miller  accidentally  showed  up,  coming  back  from  shore.  And 
he  joined  in. 

"Come  back  with  us,  you  verfluchte  Alsatz-ljoihxingeT,^^ 

The  Englishmen  from  the  Lord  Summerville  now  began  calling 
out,  "Let  him  alone !"  and  "I  say,  give  the  lad  fair  play  1" 

Some  of  them  leaped  down  on  the  dock  in  a  trice, 

"Who  the  hell  let  him  out?"  roared  the  mate. 

I  stood  on  deck,  holding  my  breath,  and  ready  to  bolt  in  case 
Franz  betrayed  me.  But  nevertheless  my  blood  was  running  high 
and  happy  over  the  excitement  I  had  caused  by  unlocking  the  door. 

"No  one  let  me  out.  I  picked  the  lock.  Will  that  suit  you?" 
lied  Franz,  protecting  me. 

"What's  the  lad  been  and  done?"  asked  the  mate  of  the 
Lord  Summerville. 

"I  was  shanghaied  in  New  York,"  put  in  Franz  swiftly,  "and  I 
demand  English  justice." 

*'And  you  shall  get  it,  my  man!"  answered  the  mate  proudly, 
"for  you  have  been  assaulted  on  English  ground,  as  I'll  stand 
witness." 


94  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

A  whistle  was  blown.  Men  came  running.  Soon  Franz  was  outside 
the  jurisdiction  of  Germany. 

The  next  day  Captain  Schantze  stalked  about,  hardly  speaking 
to  Miller.     He  was  angry  and  laid  the  blame  at  the  latter's  door. 

"Miller,  why  in  the  name  of  God  didn't  you  guard  that  fellow 
better?    An  English  court  .  .  you  know  what  they'll  do  to  us!" 

Miller  spread  his  hands  outward,  shrugged  his  shoulders  expres- 
sively, remained  in  silence.  The  two  mates  and  the  captain  ate 
the  rest  of  their  supper  in  a  silence  that  bristled. 

The  ship  was  detained  for  ten  days  more  after  its  cargo  had  been 
unloaded. 

At  the  trial,  during  which  the  "old  maids"  and  The  Sailors'  Aid 
Society  came  to  the  fore,  Captain  Schantze  roared  his  indignant 
best — so  much  so  that  the  judge  warned  him  that  he  was  not  on 
his  ship  but  on  English  ground.   .  . 

Franz  got  a  handsome  verdict  in  his  favour,  of  course. 

And  for  several  days  he  was  seen,  rolling  drunk  about  the  streets, 
by  our  boys,  who  now  looked  on  him  as  a  pretty  clever  person. 

It  was  my  time  to  run  away — if  I  ever  intended  to.  Within  the 
next  day  or  so  we  were  to  take  on  coal  for  the  West  Coast. 
We  were  to  load  down  so  heavily,  the  mate,  who  had  conceived  a 
hatred  of  me,  informed  me,  that  even  in  fair  weather 
the  scuppers  would  be  a-wash.  Significantly  he  added  there  would 
be  much  danger  for  a  man  who  was  not  liked  aboard  a  certain 
ship  .  .  by  the  mates  .  .  much  danger  of  such  a  person's  being 
washed  overboard.  For  the  waves,  you  know,  washed  over  the 
deck  of  so  heavily  loaded  a  ship  at  will. 

•  •••••• 

On  the  Lord  Summerville  was  a  mad  Pennsylvania  boy  who  had, 
like  myself,  gone  to  sea  for  the  first  time  .  .  but  he  had  had  no  uncle 
to  beat  timidity  into  him  .  .  and  he  had  dared  ship  as  able  seaman 
on  the  big  sky-sailed  lime-juicer,  and  had  gloriously  acquitted 
himself. 

He  was  a  tall,  rangy  young  bullock  of  a  lad.  He  could  split! 
any  door  with  his  fist.  He  liked  to  drink  and  fight.  And  he  likedj 
women  in  the  grog-house  sense. 

One  of  his  chief  exploits  had  been  the  punching  of  the  seconc 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  95 

mate  in  the  jaw  when  both  were  high  a-loft.  Then  he  had  caught 
him  about  the  waist,  and  held  him  till  he  came  to,  to  keep  him 
from  falling.     The  mate  had  used  bad  language  at  him. 

Hoppner  had  worked  from  the  first  as  if  he  had  been  born  to 
the  sea. 

He  and  I  met  in  a  saloon.  The  plump  little  barmaid  had  made 
him  what  she  called,  "A  man's  drink,"  while  me  she  had  served 
contemptuously  with  a  ginger  ale. 

Hoppner  boasted  of  his  exploits.     I,  of  mine. 

"I  tell  you  what,  Gregory,  since  we're  both  jumping  ship  here, 
let's  be  pals  for  awhile  and  travel  together." 

"I'm  with  you,  Hoppner." 

**And  why  jump  off  empty-handed,  since  we  are  jumping  off.'"' 

"What  is  it  you're  driving  at.'"' 

"There  ought  to  be  a  lot  of  loot  on  two  boats !" 

"Suppose  we  get  caught.'"'  I  asked  cautiously. 

"Anybody  that's  worth  a  damn  will  take  a  chance  in  this  world. 
Aren't  you  game  to  take  a  chance.'"' 

"Of  course  I'm  game." 

"Well,  then,  you  watch  your  chance  and  I'll  watch  mine.  I'll 
hook  into  everything  valuable  that's  liftable  on  my  ship  and  you 
tend  to  yours  in  the  same  fashion." 

We  struck  hands  in  partnership,  parted,  and  agreed  to  meet  at 
the  wharf -gate  the  next  night,  just  after  dark,  he  with  his  loot,  I 
with  mine. 


I  spent  the  morning  of  the  following  day  prospecting.  I  had  seen 
the  captain  put  the  ship's  money  for  the  paying  of  the  crew  in  a 
drawer,  and  turn  the  key. 

But  first,  with  a  curious  primitive  instinct,  I  fixed  on  a  small 
ham  and  a  loaf  of  rye  bread  as  part  of  the  projected  booty,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that,  if  I  but  laid  hands  on  the  ship's  money,  I 
would  have  quite  a  large  sum. 

It  was  the  piquaresque  romance  of  what  I  was  about  to  do  that 
moved  me.  The  romance  of  the  deed,  not  the  possession  of  the 
objects  stolen,  that  appealed  to  my  imagination.  I  pictured  my 
comrade  and  myself  going  overland,  our  swag  on  our  backs,  eluding 


96  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

pursuit  .  .  and  joining  with  the  natives  in  some  far  hinterland.  I 
would  be  a  sort  of  Jonathan  Wilde  plus  a  Fran9ois  Villon. 

Before  the  captain  returned  I  had  surveyed  everything  to  my 
satisfaction  .  .  after  supper  the  captain  and  the  two  mates  left 
for  shore  again. 

Now  was  the  time.  I  searched  the  captain's  old  trousers  and 
found  the  ship's  keys  there.  They  were  too  bulky  to  carry  around 
with  him. 

The  keys  seemed  to  jangle  like  thunder  as  I  tried  them  one  after 
the  other  on  the  drawer  where  I  had  seen  him  put  away  the  gold. 

I  heard  someone  coming.  I  started  to  whistle  noisily,  and  to 
polish  the  captain's  carpet  slippers!  .  .  it  was  only  someone  walking 
on  deck.  .  .  The  last  key  was,  dramatically,  the  right  one.  The 
drawer  opened  .  .  but  it  was  empty!  I  had  seen  the  captain — the 
captain  had  also  seen  me.  Now  I  started  to  take  anything  I  could 
lay  my  hands  on. 

I  snatched  off  the  wall  two  silver-mounted  cavalry  pistols,  a 
present  from  his  brother  to  Schantze.  I  added  a  bottle  of  kiimmel 
to  the  ham  and  the  rye  bread.    The  kiimmel  a  present  for  Hoppner. 

Then,  before  leaving  the  Valkyrie  forever,  I  sat  down  to  think 
if  there  were  not  something  I  might  do  to  show  my  contempt  for 
Miller.    There  were  many  things  I  could  do,  I  found. 

In  the  first  place,  I  took  a  large  sail-needle  and  some  heavy 
thread  and  I  sewed  two  pairs  of  his  trousers  and  two  of  his 
coats  up  the  middle  of  the  legs  and  arms,  so  he  couldn't  put  them 
on,  at  least  right  away.  I  picked  up  hammer  and  nails  and  nailed 
his  shoes  and  sea-boots  securely  to  the  middle  of  his  cabin  floor. 
Under  his  pillow  I  found  a  full  flask  of  brandy.  I  emptied  half  .  . 
when  I  replaced  it,  it  was  full  again.  But  I  had  not  resorted  to 
the  brandy  cask  to  fill  it. 


The  apprehension  that  I  might  be  come  upon  -flagrante  delictu 
gave  me  a  shiver  of  apprehension.  But  it  was  a  pleasurable  shiver. 
I  enjoyed  the  malicious  wantonness  of  my  acts,  and  my  prospective 
jump  into  the  unknown  .  .  all  the  South  Seas  waited  for  me  .  . 
all  the  world ! 

But,  though  every  moment's  delay  brought  detection  and  danger 
nearer,  I  found  time  for  yet  one  more  stroke.     With  a  laughable 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  97 

vision  of  Schantze  smashing  Miller  all  over  the  cabin,  I  wrote  and 
left  this  note  pinned  on  the  former's  pillow: 

Dear  Captain; — 

By  the  time  you  read  this  letter  I  will  be  beyond  your  reach 
(then  out  of  the  instant's  imagination  .  .  I  had  not  considered  such 
a  thing  hitherto).  I  am  going  far  into  the  interior  and  discover 
a  gold  mine.  When  I  am  rich  I  shall  repay  you  for  the  cavalry 
pistols  which  I  am  compelled  to  confiscate  in  lieu  of  my  wages,  which 
I  now  forfeit  by  running  away,  though  entitled  to  them. 

You  have  been  a  good  captain  and  I  like  you. 

As  for  Miller,  he  is  beneath  my  contempt.  It  was  he  who  drank 
all  your  wines,  brandies,  and  whiskies  .  .  the  sailmaker  is  to  answer 
for  your  beer.  The  second  mate  has  been  in  on  this  theft  of  your 
liquors,  too  (I  left  the  cook  out  because  he  had  been  nice  to  me). 

Good-bye,  and  good  luck. 

Your  former  cabin  boy,  and,  though  you  may  not  believe  me, 
always  your  well-wisher  and  friend, 

John  Gregory. 

I  left  what  I  had  stolen  bundled  up  in  my  blanket.  I  walked 
forward  nonchalantly  to  see  if  anyone  was  out  to  observe  me.  I 
discovered  the  sandy-haired  Blacksmith,  Klumpf,  sitting  on  the 
main  hatch.  I  saw  that  I  could  not  pass  him  with  my  bundle  with- 
out strategy.     The  strategy  I  employed  was  simple. 

I  drew  him  a  bottle  of  brandy.  I  gave  it  to  him.  After  he  had 
drawn  a  long  drink  I  told  him  I  was  running  away  from  the  ship. 
He  laughed  and  took  another  drink.  I  passed  him  with  my  bundle. 
He  shouted  good-bye  to  me. 

Before  I  had  gone  by  the  nose  of  the  old  ship,  who  should  I  run 
into  but  inaus,  coming  back  from  a  spree.  He  was  pushing  along 
on  all  fours  like  an  animal,  he  was  so  drunk  .  .  good,  simple  Klaus, 
whom  I  liked.  I  laid  down  my  bundle,  risking  capture,  while  I  helped 
him  to  the  deck.  He  stopped  a  moment  to  pat  the  ship's  side 
affectionately  as  if  it  were  a  living  friend,  or  nearer,  a  mother. 

"Gute  alte  Valkyrie!  .  .  gute  alte  Valkyrier  he  murmured. 


98  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Safe  so  far.  At  the  outside  of  the  dock-gate  Hoppner  waited 
my  arrival.  He  was  interested  in  the  kiimmel,  and  in  the  pistols, 
which  were  pawnable. 

He  had  been  more  daring  than  I.  He  had  tried  to  pick  his  cap- 
tain's pocket  of  a  gold  watch  while  the  latter  slept.  But  every  time 
he  reached  for  it  the  captain  stirred  uneasily.  He  would  have 
snatched  it  anyhow,  but  just  then  his  first  mate  stepped  into  the 
cabin  ;  .  "and  I  hid  till  the  mate  went  out  again." 

"And  what  then?" 

"I  picked  up  a  lot  of  silverware  the  captian  had  for  show  occa- 
sions .  .  that  I  found,  rummaging  about." 

"And  him  there  sleeping.''" 

"Why  not.?" 

"I  found  four  revolvers  that  belonged  to  the  mates  and  captain. 
I  put  them  all  in  one  bundle  and  chucked  them  into  a  rowboat  over 
the  ship's  side.    And  now  we  must  go  back  to  your  boat " 

"To  my  boat?"  I  asked,  amazed. 

"Yes"  (I  had  told  him  how  nearly  I  had  missed  our  ship-money). 

"To  your  boat,  and  ransack  the  cabin  till  we  locate  that  coin." 

"That's  too  risky." 

"Hell,  take  a  chance,  can't  you?" 

That's  what  Hoppner  was  always  saying  as  long  as  we  travelled 
together:   "Hell,  take  a  chance." 

But  when  I  began  telling  him  with  convulsive  laughter,  of  the 
revenge  I  had  taken  on  the  mate  .  .  and  also  how  I  had  thrown 
all  the  keys  overboard,  Hoppner,  instead  of  joining  in  with  my 
laughter,  struck  at  me,  not  at  all  playfully,  "What  kind  of  damn 
jackass  have  I  joined  up  with,  anyhow,"  he  exclaimed.  "Now  it 
won't  be  any  use  going  back,  you've  thrown  the  keys  away  and  we'd 
make  too  great  a  racket,  breaking  open  things.  .  ." 

He  insisted,  however,  on  going  back  to  his  own  boat,  sliding  down 
to  the  rowboat,  and  rowing  away  with  the  loot  he  had  cast  into  it. 
We  had  no  sooner  reached  the  prow  of  the  Lord  Summerville  than  we 
observed  people  bestirring  themselves  on  board  her  more  than  was 
natural. 

"Come  on,  now  we'll  beat  it.     They're  after  me." 

Hoppner  had  also  brought  a  blanket.  We  went  "humping  bluey" 
as  swagmen,  as  the  tramp  is  called  in  Australia. 

The  existence  of  the  swagman  is  the  happiest  vagrant's  life  in 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  99 

the  world.  He  is  usually  regarded  as  a  bona  fide  seeker  for  work, 
and  food  is  readily  given  him  for  the  asking.  Unlike  the  American 
hobo,  he  is  given  his  food  raw,  and  is  expected  to  cook  it  himself. 
So  he  carries  what  he  calls  a  "tucker  bag"  to  hold  his  provisions ; 
also,  almost  more  important — his  "billy  can"  or  tea-pot.  .  . 

Hoppner  and  I  acquired  the  tea-habit  as  badly  as  the  rest  of  the 
Australian  swagmen.  Every  mile  or  so  the  swagman  seems  to  stop, 
build  a  fire,  and  brew  his  draught  of  tea,  which  he  makes  strong 
enough  to  take  the  place  of  the  firiest  swig  of  whiskey.  I've  seen 
an  old  swagman  boil  his  tea  for  an  actual  half-hour,  till  the  resultant 
concoction  was  as  thick  and  black  as  New  Orleans  molasses.  With 
such  continual  draughts  of  tea,  only  the  crystalline  air,  and  the 
healthy  dryness  of  the  climate  keeps  them  from  drugging  them- 
selves to  death. 

"Tea  ain't  any  good  to  drink  unless  you  can  put  a  stick  straight 
up  in  it,  and  it  can  stand  alone  there,"  joked  an  old  swagman,  who 
had  invited  us  to  partake  of  a  hospitable  "billy-can"  with  him. 

•  •••••• 

We  had  long,  marvellous  talks  with  different  swagmen,  as  we 
slowly  sauntered  north  to  Newcastle.  .  . 

We  heard  of  the  snakes  of  Australia,  which  workmen  dug  up  in 
torpid  writhing  knots,  in  the  cold  weather  .  .  of  native  corrobories 
which  one  old  informant  told  us  he  had  often  attended,  where 
he  procured  native  women  or  "gins"  as  they  called  them,  for  a  mere 
drink  of  whiskey  or  gin  .  .  "that's  why  they  calls  'em  *gins'  "  he 
explained  .  .  (wrong,  for  "gin"  or  a  word  of  corresponding  sound 
is  the  name  for  "woman"  in  many  native  languages  in  the  antip- 
odes). .  . 

The  azure  beauty  of  those  days !  .  .  tramping  northward  with 
nothing  in  the  world  to  do  but  swap  stories  and  rest  whenever  we 
chose,  about  campfires  of  resinous,  sweetly  smelling  wood  .  .  drink- 
ing and  drinking  that  villainous  tea. 

In  Australia  the  law  against  stealing  rides  on  freights  is  strictly 
enforced.  The  tramp  has  always  to  walk — to  the  American  tramp 
this  is  at  first  a  hardship,  but  you  soon  grow  to  like  it  .  .  you 
learn  to  enjoy  the  wine  in  the  air,  the  fragrance  of  the  strange  trees 
that  shed  bark  instead  of  leaves,  the  noise  of  scores  of  unseen 
waterfalls  in  the  hills  of  New  South  Wales. 


100  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  morning  that  the  little  sea-port  of  .Newcastle  lay  before 
us,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  on  tour  through  a  strange  world.  For  the 
first  time  the  story-books  of  my  youth  had  come  true. 

But  Hoppner  rose  from  the  camp  fire  that  we'd  been  sleeping  by, 
stretched,  and  remarked,  "now,  thank  Christ,  I'll  be  able  to  find 
a  good  seat  in  a  pub  again,  just  like  in  Sydney,  and  all  the  booze 
I  can  drink.  We  can  go  to  some  sailors'  boarding  house  here,  tell 
them  we  want  to  ship  out,  and  they'll  furnish  us  with  the  proper 
amount  of  drinks  and  take  care  of  us,  all  hunky  dory,  till  they  find 
us  a  berth  on  ship  .  .  of  course  they'll  be  well  paid  for  their 
trouble  .  .  two  months'  advance  pay  handed  over  to  them  by  the 
skipper  .  .  but  that  won't  bother  me  a  bit." 

From  the  hill  on  which  we  lay  encamped  we  saw  .all  the  ships  in 
the  harbour.  I  no  longer  feared  the  sea.  Your  true  adventurer 
forgets  danger  and  perils  experienced  as  a  woman  forgets  the  pangs 
of  childbirth. 

We  met  a  sailor  on  the  street,  who,  though  at  first  a  stranger, 
soon  became  our  friend  and,  with  the  quick  hospitality  of  the  sea, 
steered  us  to  a  pub  known  as  the  Green  Emerald,  bought  us  drinks, 
and  introduced  us  to  Mother  Conarty,  the  proprietress. 

"I'll  ship  ye  out  all  right,  but  where's  your  dunnage?" 

We  confessed  that  we  had  run  away  from  our  ships  down  at 
Sydney. 

The  old  sailor  had  spoken  of  Mother  Conarty  as  rough-mannered, 
but  a  woman  with  "a  good,  warm  heart." 

She  proved  it  by  taking  us  in  to  board,  with  no  dunnage  for  her 
to  hold  as  security. 

"Oh,  they're  good  lads,  I'm  sure,"  vouched  our  sailor-friend, 
speaking  of  us  as  if  we  had  been  forecastle  mates  of  his  for  twenty 
voyages  on  end  .  .  the  way  of  the  sea ! 

Now  Mother  Conarty  was  not  stupid.  She  was  a  great-bodied, 
jolly  Irishwoman,  but  she  possessed  razor-keen,  hazel  eyes  that  nar- 
rowed on  us  a  bit  when  she  first  saw  us.  But  the  woman  in  her  soon 
hushed  her  passing  suspicions.  For  Hoppner  was  a  frank-faced, 
handsome  lad,  with  wide  shoulders  and  a  small  waist  like  a  girl's. 
It  was  Hoppner's  good  looks  took  her  in.  She  gave  us  a  room 
together. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  101 

There  was  a  blowsy  cheeked  bar-maid.  Mother  Conarty's  daugh- 
ter. She  knew  well  how  to  handle  with  a  few  sharp,  ironic  remarks 
anyone  who  tried  to  "get  fresh"  with  her  .  .  and  if  she  couldn't, 
there  were  plenty  of  husky  sailormen  about,  hearty  in  their  admir- 
ation for  the  resolute,  clean  girl,  and  ready  with  mauling  jBsts. 

*'Mother  Conarty's  proud  o'  that  kid  o'  hers,  she  is." 
"And  well  she  may  be!" 

''I've  been  thinkin'  over  you  b'yes,  an'  as  ye  hain't  no  dunnage 
wit'  ye,  I'm  thinkin'  ye'll  be  workin'  fer  yer  board  an'  room." 

"We're  willing  enough,  mother,"  I  responded,  with  a  sinking  of 
the  heart,  while  Hoppner  grimaced  to  me,  behind  her  back. 

We  scrubbed  out  rooms,  and  the  stairs,  the  bar,  behind  the  bar, 
the  rooms  back  and  front,  where  the  sailors  drank.  We  earned 
our  board  and  room  .  .  for  a  few  days. 

•  .«•••• 

At  the  Green  Emerald  I  met  my  first  case  of  delirium  tremens. 
And  it  was  a  townsman  who  had  'em,  not  a  sailor.  The  townsman 
was  well-dressed  and  well-behaved — at  first  .  .  but  there  lurked  a 
wild  stare  in  his  eye  that  was  almost  a  glaze  .  .  and  he  hung  on 
the  bar  and  drank  and  drank  and  drank.  It  apparently  had  no 
effect  on  him,  the  liquor  that  he  took. 

"Say,  but  you're  a  tough  one,"  complimented  Molly. 

But  it  began  in  the  afternoon.  He  picked  up  a  stray  dog  from 
the  floor  and  began  kissing  it.  And  the  dog  slavered  back,  return- 
ing his  affection.  Then  he  dropped  the  dog  and  began  picking 
blue  monkeys  off  the  wall  .  .  wee  things,  he  explained  to  us  .  .  that 
he  could  hold  between  thumb  and  forefinger  .  .  only  there  were 
so  many  of  them  .  .  multitudes  of  them  .  .  that  they  rather  dis- 
tressed him  .  .  they  carried  the  man  away  in  an  ambulance. 

Hoppner  and  I  tired  of  the  ceaseless  scrubbing.  One  day  we 
simply  walked  out  of  the  Green  Emerald  and  never  showed  up 
again.     Hoppner  stayed  on  in  town. 

I  found  that  the  Valkyrie  had  run  up  from  Sydney  to  coal  at 
Newcastle,  for  the  West  Coast.  I  thought  that  in  this  case  a  little 
knowledge  was  not  a  dangerous  thing,  but  a  good  thing,  as  long  as 
I  confined  that  knowledge  to  myself.     I  knew  that  the  Valkyrie  was 


102  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

there.  It  was  not  necessary  that  the  officers  of  the  boat  should 
know  I  was  there  .  .  which  I  wasn't,  for  I  turned  south,  my  swag 
on  my  back,  and  made  Sydney  again. 

In  Sydney  and  "on  the  rocks,"  that  is  with  nothing  to  eat  and 
no  place  to  sleep  but  outdoors. 

Of  course  I  couldn't  keep  away  from  the  ships.  I  arrived  at  the 
Circular  Quay.  I  ran  into  the  Sailors'  Mission.  They  were  serv- 
ing tea  and  having  a  prayer-meeting.     I  wandered  in. 

A  thin,  wisplike  man,  timid,  in  black,  but  very  gentlemanly,  made 
me  heartily  welcome.  Not  with  that  obnoxious,  forced  heartiness 
sky-pilots  think  the  proper  manner  to  affect  in  dealing  with  sailors, 
but  in  a  human  way  genuinely  felt. 

After  a  service  of  hearty  singing,  he  asked  me  if  he  could  help 
me  in  any  way. 

"I  suppose  you  can.     I'm  on  the  rocks  bad." 

He  gave  me  all  the  cakes  to  eat  which  were  left  over  from  the 
tea.     And  a  couple  of  shillings  beside. 

"I  wonder  if  there's  anything  else  I  can  do?" 

"Yes,  I'm  a  poet,"  I  ventured,  "and  I'd  like  to  get  Chaucer's 
Canterbury  Tales  to  read  again."  I  said  this  as  much  to  startle 
the  man  as  really  meaning  it.  I  can  go  so  long  without  reading 
certain  poets,  and  after  that  I  starve  for  them  as  the  hungry  starve 
for  food.     I  was  hungry  for  Chaucer. 

Such  a  request,  coming  from  a  youth  almost  in  rags,  impressed 
the  sky-pilot  so  deeply  that  he  insisted  on  giving  me  a  job  pump- 
ing the  organ  during  services  and  a  little  room  to  sleep  in  at  the  mis- 
sion. What  is  more,  he  lent  me  Skeats'  edition  of  Chaucer,  com- 
plete. And  all  the  time  I  was  with  him  he  proved  a  "good  sport." 
He  didn't  take  advantage  of  my  dependence  on  him  to  bother  me 
so  very  much  about  God. 

He  took  it  for  granted  that  I  was  a  Christian,  since  I  never 
discussed  religion  with  him. 

•  •••••• 

It  began  to  grow  wearisome,  pumping  an  organ  for  a  living.  And 
I  had  fed  myself  full  on  Chaucer. 

I  began  to  yawn,  behind  the  organ,  over  the  growing  staleness 
of  life  in  a  sailors'  mission.    And  also  I  was  being  pestered  by  a  tall, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  103 

frigid  old  maid  in  purples  and  blacks,  who  had  fixed  her  eye  on  me 
as  a  heathen  she  must  convert. 


"How'd  you  like  a  voyage  to  China?"  the  sky-pilot  asked,  one  day. 

Cathay  .  .  Marco  Polo  .  .  Milton's  description  of  the  Chinese 
moving  their  wheelbarrows  along  the  land  by  means  of  sails  .  . 
many  poetic  visions  marched  across  my  mind  at  the  question. 

"I'd  like  to,  right  enough." 

"Then  here's  a  chance  for  you,"  and  he  handed  me  a  copy  of  the 
Bulletin,  pointing  out  an  advertisement  for  cattlemen  on  the  steam- 
boat, South  Sea  King,  about  to  take  a  cargo  of  steers  from 
Queensland  to  Taku,  province  of  Pechi-li,  Northern  China. 

"What  are  they  sending  cattle  away  up  there  for?" 

"Supplies  for  troops  .  .  The  Boxer  outbreak,  you  know  .  . 
go  down  to  the  number  given  in  the  advertisement,  and  I'm  sure 
they'll  sign  you  on  as  cattleman,  if  you  want  the  job." 

'"'All  right.     I'll  go  now." 

"No,"  looking  me  over  dubiously,  "you'd  better  not  go  there 
or  anywhere  else,  in  your  present  rig  .  .  you're  too  ragged  to  apply 
even  for  such  work  .  .  hang  around  till  morning,  and  I'll  go  home 
to-night  and  bring  you  a  decent  coat,  at  least.  Your  coat  is  worse 
than  your  trousers  .  .  though  thei/  are  ravelled  at  the  bottoms  and 
coming  through  in  the  left  knee  .  .  every  time  you  take  a  step  I  can 
see  a  glint  of  white  through  the  cloth,  and,"  walking  round  me  in 
a  tour  of  inspection,  "the  seat  might  break  through  at  any  moment." 
All  this  was  said  without  a  glint  of  humour  in  his  eyes. 

Next  morning  the  sky-pilot  came  down  very  late.  It  was  twelve. 
But  he  had  not  forgotten  me.  "Here's  the  coat,"  and  he  solemnly 
unwrapped  and  trailed  before  my  astonished  gaze  a  coat  with  a  long, 
ministerial  tail.  I  put  it  on.  The  tail  came  below  the  bend  of  my 
knees.     I  laughed.     The  sky-pilot  did  not. 

Finally  he  stepped  back,  cracked  a  solemn  smile,  and  remarked, 
"You  do  look  rather  odd !" 

The  intonation  of  his  voice,  his  solemn  almost  deprecatory  smile, 
set  me  off  and  I  laughed  till  the  tears  ran  down  my  face. 

"I  say,  what's  so  funny?" 

"Me !     I  am !   .   .  in  your  long-tailed  coat." 


104  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"If  I  was  on  the  rocks  like  you  I  wouldn't  see  anything  to  laugh 
about." 


At  the  shipping  office,  the  place  mentioned  in  the  advertisement, 
in  the  dimly  lit,  grey-paned  room,  there  sat  one  lone,  pasty-faced, 
old-youngish  clerk  on  the  traditional  clerk's  high  stool.  But  he 
proved  lively  beyond  his  appearance. 

"My  God !  do  look  who's  here !"  he  exclaimed  facetiously,  and  then, 
rapidly,  without  giving  me  room  for  a  biting  word  in  return,  "no, 
there's  no  use  now,  my  boy  .  .  we  took  on  all  the  cattlemen  we 
needed  by  ten  o'clock  this  morning." 

I  walked  away,  disconsolate.  I  bore  on  my  back  my  swagman's 
blanket.  In  the  blanket  I  carried  a  change  of  shirts  the  sky-pilot 
had  given  me,  a  razor,  a  toothbrush,  a  Tennyson,  and  a  Westcott 
and  Hort's  Greek  New  Testament  with  glossary,  that  I  had  stolen 
from  a  bookstall  in  Sydney. 

•  •••••• 

I  found  out  where  the  dock  was,  nevertheless,  where  the  men  were 
loafing  about  in  groups,  waiting  to  be  taken  out  to  the  South  Sea 
King  .  .  which  lay  in  the  harbour. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  pier  I  met  a  powerful,  chunky  lad  who 
was  called  "Nippers,"  he  said.  He,  too,  was  going  with  the  South 
Sea  King  .  .  not  as  a  cattleman,  but  as  stowaway.  He  urged  me 
to  stow  away  along  with  him.  And  he  gave  me,  unimaginatively, 
my  name  of  "Skinny,"  which  the  rest  called  me  during  the  voyage. 

We  strolled  up  to  the  men  and  joined  them. 

"Hello,  kids !" 

"Hello  fellows  !     Are  you  the  cattlemen  for  the  South  Sea  King?" 

"Right  you  are,  my  lad  .  .  we  are  that !" 

The  men  went  on  with  their  arguing.  They  were  fighting  the 
Boer  War  all  over  again  with  their  mouths.  Some  of  them  had 
been  in  it.  Many  of  them  had  tramped  in  South  Africa.  They 
shouted  violently,  profanely,  at  each  other  at  the  tops  of  their 
voices  contending  with  loud  assertions  and  counter-assertions,  as 
if  about  to  engage  in  an  all-round  fight. 

Several  personal  altercations  sprang  up,  the  points  of  the  debate 
forgotten  .  .  I  couldn't  discover  what  it  was  about,  myself  .  .  only 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  105 

that  one  man  was  a  fool  .  .  another,  a  silly  ass  .  .  another,  a  bloody 
liar! 

The  launch  which  was  to  carry  them  to  the  South  Sea  King  at 
this  moment  started  nosing  into  the  dock,  on  a  turbulent  zig-zag 
across  the  harbour;  and  the  men  forgot  their  quarrelling.  It 
brought  up  at  the  foot  of  a  pile  and  made  fast. 

"Come  on,  Skinny,"  Nippers  urged  me  aggressively,  "it's  front 
seats  or  nothing.  Act  as  if  you  owned  the  boat."  We  thrust 
ahead  of  the  others  and  swarmed  down  the  ladder  .  .  heaping, 
swearing,  horse-playing,  the  cattlemen  filled  the  launch  from  stern 
to  bow. 

Nippers  had  been  a  professional  stowaway  since  his  tenth  year. 
He  had  gone  all  over  the  world  in  that  fashion,  he  had  informed  me. 
He  was  now  sixteen.     I  was  almost  eighteen. 

His  six  years  of  rough  life  with  rough  men  had  brought  him  to 
premature  manhood,  taught  him  to  exhibit  a  saucy  aplomb  to 
everybody,  to  have  at  his  finger-ends  all  the  knockabout  resource- 
fulness and  impudence  that  the  successful  vagrant  must  acquire  in 
order  to  live  at  all  as  an  individual.  .  . 

•  •  •  I      •  •  •  • 

We  were  the  first  on  deck. 

"Where  are  the  cattlemen's  bunks?"  Nippers  asked  of  an  oiler 
who  stood,  nonchalant,  somewhat  contemptuous,  looking  over  the 
side  at  the  seething,  vociferous  cattlemen. 

Not  wasting  a  word  on  us,  the  oiler  pointed  aft  over  his  shoulder, 
with  a  grimy  thumb. 

We  found  a  dark  entrance  like  the  mouth  to  a  cave,  that  led  down 
below.  In  our  hurry  we  lost  our  footing  on  the  greasy  ladder  and 
tumbled  all  the  way  to  the  bottom. 

We  had  not  time  to  rub  our  bruises.  We  plumped  down  and 
under  the  lower  tier  of  bunks  .  .  just  in  time  .  .  the  men  came 
pouring  down  helter-skelter  .  .  the  talking,  arguing,  voluble  swear- 
ing, and  obscenity  was  renewed  .  .  all  we  could  see,  from  where  we 
lay,  was  a  confusion  of  legs  to  the  knee,  moving  about.  .  . 

They  settled  down  on  the  benches  about  the  table.  They  slack- 
ened their  talk  and  began  smacking  their  lips  over  ship-biscuit, 
marmalade,  and  tea. 


106  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Still  we  lay  in  silence.  The  screw  of  the  propeller  had  not  started 
yet.     We  dared  not  come  out  or  we  would  be  put  ashore. 

We  were  hungry.  We  could  hear  their  tin  plates  clattering  and 
clinking  as  the  cattlemen  ate  supper,  and  smell  the  smell  of  corn- 
beef  and  boiled  potatoes.     Our  mouths  ran  from  hunger. 

— "wish  I  had  something  to  scoff,  I'm  starvin',"  groaned  Nippers, 
"but  we'll  hafta  lay  low  till  the  bloody  tub  pulls  out  or  we'll  get 
caught  an'  dumped  ashore." 

Supper  done  with,  the  men  were  sitting  about  and  smoking.  They 
were  soon,  however,  summoned  up  on  deck,  by  a  voice  that  roared 
down  to  them,  from  above,  filling  their  quarters  with  a  gust  of 
sound. 

We  were  alone  now,  perhaps, — it  was  so  still. 

With  an  almost  imperceptible  slowness,  Nippers  thrust  his  head 
out,  as  cautiously  as  a  turtle  .  .  he  emerged  further. 

He  made  a  quick  thrust  of  the  arm  for  a  platter  of  beef  and 
potatoes,  that  stood,  untouched,  on  the  table  .  .  someone  coughed. 
We  had  thought  we  were  alone.  Nippers  jerked  back.  The  tin 
came  down  with  a  clatter,  first  to  the  bench,  then  to  the  floor.  A 
big  friendly  potato  rolled  under  to  where  we  were.  We  seized  on 
it,  divided  it,  ate  it. 

Contrary  to  our  conjecture,  some  of  the  men  must  have  stayed 
below.      Someone  jumped  out  of  a  bunk. 

"There's  rats  down  here !" 

*' — mighty  big  rats,  if  you  arsks  me." 

"It's  not  rats,"  and  I  could  hear  a  fear  in  the  voice  that  quav- 
ered the  words  forth,  "I  tell  you,  buddy,  this  ship  is  haunted." 

" — haunted !"  boomed  the  voice  of  a  man  coming  down  the  ladder, 
"you  stop  this  silly  nonsense  right  now  .  .  don't  spread  such  talk 
as  that  .   .  it's  stowaways !" 

We  saw  a  pair  of  legs  to  the  knees  again.  We  lay  still,  breath- 
less. A  watch  chain  dangled  down  in  a  parabolic  loop.  Then  fol- 
lowed a  round  face,  beef-red  with  stooping.  It  looked  under  apo- 
plectically  at  us. 

"Ah,  me  b'yes,  c'm  on  out  o'  there !" 

And  out  we  came,  dragged  by  the  foot,  one  after  the  other,  as 
I  myself  in  my  childhood  have  pulled  frogs  out  from  a  hole  in  a 
brook-bank. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  107 

"I've  been  hearing  them  for  hours,  Mister,"  spoke  up  the  little, 
shrivelled,  leathery-skinned  West  Indian  negro,  who  spoke  English 
without  a  trace  of  dialect,  "and  I  was  sure  the  place  was  haunted." 


We  stood  before  the  captain,  cap  deferentially  in  hand. 

But  he  looked  like  anything  but  a  man  in  charge  of  a  ship.  He 
was  short.  In  outward  appearance,  moreover,  he  was  like  a  wax 
doll.  He  had  waxen-white  cheeks  with  daubs  of  pink  as  if  they  had 
been  put  there  from  a  rouge  pot.  His  hair  was  nicely  scented, 
oiled,  and  patted  down.  His  small  hands  were  white  and  perfectly 
manicured. 

Nippers  began  to  snicker  openly  at  him.  But  the  sharp  variety 
and  incisiveness  of  the  oaths  he  vented  at  us,  soon  disabused  us  of 
any  opinion  we  might  have  held  that  he  was  sissified.   .   . 

"What's  wrong  with  you,  you  young you.'"' 

began  the  captain.  The  snicker  died  slowly  from  Nipper's  lips,  and 
in  his  face  dawned  an  infinite,  surprised  respect.  .  . 

Then,  after  he  had  subdued  us : 

"So  you're  stowaways,  ek?  .  .  and  you  think  you're  going  to  be 
given  a  free  ride  to  Brisbane  and  let  go  ashore,  scot  free?  .  .  not 
much!  You'll  either  go  to  jail  there  or  sign  up  here,  as  cattlemen 
for  the  trip  to  China — even  though  I  can  see  that  your  mouths  are 
still  wet  from  your  mothers'  tits !"  And  he  ended  with  a  blas- 
phemous flourish. 

Nippers  and  I  looked  at  each  other  in  astonishment.  Of  course 
we  wanted  to  sign  on  as  cattlemen.  No  doubt  some  of  the  men  hired 
at  Sydney  had  failed  to  show  up  at  the  wharf. 

The  ship's  book  was  pushed  before  us. 

"Sign  here !"  I  signed  "John  Gregory"  with  satisfaction.  Nip- 
pers signed  after,  laboriously. 

"And  now  get  aft  with  you,  you !"  cursed  the  captain,  dis- 
missing us  with  a  parting  volley  that  beat  about  our  ears. 

"Gawd,  but  the  skipper's  a  right  man  enough !"  worshipped  Nip- 
pers. 

We  hurried  down  the  ladder  to  gobble  up  what  was  left  of  the 
cornbeef  and  potatoes.  .  .  Nippers  looked  up  at  me,  with  a  hunk 
of  beef  sticking  from  his  mouth,  which  he  poked  in  with  the  butt-end 


108  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

of  his  knife.  .  .  "Say,  didn't  the  old  man  cuss  wonderful,  and  him 
lookin'  like  such  a  lady !" 

There  was  plenty  of  work  to  do  in  the  few  days  it  took  to  reach 
Brisbane,  where  the  cattle  were  to  be  taken  aboard.  The  boat  was 
an  ordinary  tramp  steamer,  and  we  had  to  make  an  improvised 
cattleboat  out  of  her.  Already  carpenters  had  done  much  to  that 
effect  by  erecting  enclosures  on  the  top  deck,  the  main  deck,  by 
putting  up  stalls  in  the  hold.  Every  available  foot  was  to  be 
packed  with  the  living  flesh  of  cattle. 

We  gave  the  finishing  touches  to  the  work,  trying  to  make  the 
boarding  and  scantling  more  solid — solid  enough  to  withstand  the 
plunging,  lurching,  and  kicking  of  fear-stricken,  wild  Queensland 
steers  unused  to  being  cooped  up  on  shipboard.  .  . 

We  had  made  fast  to  a  dock  down  the  Brisbane  River,  several 
miles  out  from  Brisbane  .  .  nearby  stood  the  stockyards,  with  no 
cattle  in  them  yet. 

In  a  day's  time  of  lusty  heaving  and  running  and  hauling  we  had 
taken  on  the  bales  of  compressed  fodder  that  were  to  feed  the  cattle 
for  the  twenty-day  trip  to  Taku,  China. 

Then  the  little,  fiery,  doll-like  skipper  made  the  tactical  error  of 
paying  each  man  a  couple  of  bob  advance  on  his  forthcoming  wages. 

In  a  shouting,  singing  mob  we  made  for  Brisbane,  like  schoolboys 
on  a  holiday. 

Two  shilling  apiece  wasn't  much.  But  a  vagabond  can  make  a 
little  silver  go  far.  And  there  are  more  friends  to  be  found  by 
men  in  such  a  condition,  more  good  times  to  be  had — of  a  sort — 
than  a  world  held  by  more  proper  standards  can  imagine. 

In  both  brothel  and  pub  the  men  found  friends.  There  were 
other  sailors  ashore,  there  were  many  swagmen  just  in  from  the 
bush — some  with  "stakes"  they  had  earned  on  the  ranches  out  in 
the  country  .  .  and  in  their  good,  simple  hearts  they  were  not 
averse  to  "standing  treats." 

As  if  by  previous  appointment,  one  by  one  we  drifted  together, 
we  cattlemen  of  the  South  Sea  King — we  drifted  together  and 
found  each  other  in  the  fine  park  near  the  Queensland  House  of 
Parliament. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  109 

We  had,  all  of  us,  already  over-stayed  our  shore-leave  by  many 
hours.  We  grouped  together  in  informal  consultation  as  to  what 
should  be  done — should  we  go  back  to  the  ship  or  not? 

"We  might  run  into  a  typhoon  .  .  with  all  them  crazy  cattle  on 
board !"  voiced  one.  .  . 


Nevertheless,  perhaps  because  it  was,  after  all,  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  because  there  regular  meals  awaited  us,  and  a  secure 
place  of  sleep,  by  twos  and  threes  we  drifted  back,  down  the  long, 
hot,  dusty  road,  to  where  the  South  Sea  King  lay  waiting  for  us  .  . 
the  mate,  the  captain,  and  the  cattle-boss  furious  at  us  for  our 
over-stayed  shore-leave.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

The  cattle  had  been  there  these  many  hours,  bellowing  and  moving 
restlessly  in  their  land-pens,  the  hot  sun  blazing  down  upon  them. 

Our  cattle-boss,  it  seems,  knew  all  about  the  handling  of  his 
animals  on  land.  But  not  on  sea.  When,  the  following  morning, 
we  started  early,  trying  to  drive  the  cattle  on  board  ship,  they 
refused  to  walk  up  the  runway.  In  vain  the  boss  strewed  earth 
and  sod  along  its  course,  to  make  it  seem  a  natural  passage  for 
them  .  .  they  rushed  around  and  around  their  pens,  kicking  up  a 
vast,  white,  choking  dust, — snorting,  bellowing,  and  throwing  their 
rumps  out  gaily  in  sidelong  gallopades  .  .  all  young  Queensland 
steers;  wild,  but  not  vicious.  Still  full  of  the  life  and  strength  of 
the  open  range.  .  . 

Then  we  scattered  bits  of  the  broken  bales  of  their  prepared 
food,  along  the  runway,  to  lure  them  .  .  a  few  were  led  aboard 
thus.  But  the  captain  cried  with  oaths  that  they  didn't  have  time 
to  make  a  coaxing-party  of  the  job.  .  . 

At  last  the  donkey-engine  was  started,  forward.  A  small  cable 
was  run  through  a  block,  and,  fastened  by  their  halters  around 
their  horns,  one  after  the  other  the  steers,  now  bellowing  in  great 
terror,  their  eyes  popping  for  fear — were  hoisted  up  in  the  air, 
poised  on  high,  kicking,  then  swung  down,  and  on  deck. 

You  had  to  keep  well  from  under  each  one  as  he  descended,  or 
suffer  the  befouling  consequences  of  his  fear  .  .  we  had  great  laughter 
over  several  men  who  came  within  the  explosive  radius  .  .  till  the 


110  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

mate  hit  on  the  device  of  tying  each  beast's  tail  close  before  he  was 
jerked  up  into  the  air. 

What  a  pandemonium  .  .  shouting  .  .  swearing  .  .  whistles  blowing 
signals  .  .  the  chugging  respiration  of  the  labouring  donkey- 
engine  .  .  and  then  the  attempted  stampede  of  each  trembling,  fear- 
crazy  animal  as  soon  as  he  rose  four-footed,  on  deck,  after  his 
ride  through  the  sky.   .   . 

The  ship  was  crammed  as  full  as  Noah's  ark.  In  the  holds  and 
on  the  main  deck  stood  the  steers,  in  long  rows.   .   . 

On  the  upper  deck,  exposed  to  all  the  weather,  were  housed  the 
more  tractable  sheep,  who  had,  without  objection,  bleated  their 
way  aboard  docilely  up  the  runway — behind  their  black  ram  .  . 
that  the  cattle-boss  had  to  help  on  a  bit,  by  pulling  him  the  few 
first  yards  by  his  curly  horns. 

As  we  swam  by  in  the  fading  day,  a  pale  ghost  of  a  moon  was 
already  up.  Ghostly  rows  of  knee-ing  trees  stood  out  like  live  things 
in  the  river.  .  . 

Under  the  night,  off  at  sea,  what  with  the  mooing  and  baaing 
through  all  the  ship,  it  seemed  like  an  absurd  farmyard  that  had 
somehow  got  on  the  ocean. 

There  were  two  quarters  for  the  men  .  .  a  place  under  the  fore- 
castle head,  forward — as  well  as  the  after-quarters.  Nippers  and 
I  had  been  separated — ^he  staying  aft,  while  I  took  up  my  bunk 
forward. 

•  •••••• 

But  the  men  on  the  boat,  the  few  that  stick  in  my  memory  as 
distinct  personages : 

There  was  the  bloated,  fat  Scotch  boy,  whom  we  called  just 
Fatty,  a  sheepherder  by  calling.  He  had  signed  on  for  the  trip,  to 
take  care  of  the  sheep  on  the  upper  deck; 

There  was  a  weak,  pathetic  cockney,  who  died  of  sun-stroke; 

The  ex-jockey,  a  bit  of  a  man  with  a  withered  left  arm — made 
that  way  from  an  injury  received  in  his  last  race,  when  his  mount 
fell  on  him ; 

There  was  the  West  Indian  Negro,  a  woolly,  ebony  wisp  of  a 
creature,  a  great  believer  in  ghosts  (he  who  thought  we  stowaways 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  111 

were  ghosts  when  we  hid  under  the  bunk).  The  Irish  cattle-boss 
gave  him  the  job  of  night-watchman,  "to  break  him  of  his  super- 
stitious silliness" ; 

There  was  the  big,  black  Jamaica  cook  .  .  as  black  as  if  he  was 
polished  ebony  .  .  a  fine,  big,  polite  chap,  whom  everyone  liked. 
He  had  a  white  wife  in  Southampton  (the  sailors  who  had  seen 
her  said  she  was  pretty  .  .  that  the  cook  was  true  to  her  .  .  that 
she  came  down  to  the  boat  the  minute  the  South  Sea  King  reached 
an  English  port,  they  loved  each  other  so  deeply!).   .   . 

Then  there  was  the  giant  of  an  Irishman  .  .  who,  working  side 
by  side  with  me  in  the  hold,  shovelling  out  cattle-ordure  there  with 
me,  informed  me  that  I  looked  as  if  I  had  consumption  .  .  that  I 
would  not  be  able  to  stand  the  terrific  heat  for  many  days  without 
keeling  over  .  .  but,  his  prediction  came  true  of  himself,  not  of  me. 

One  morning,  not  many  days  out,  the  little  West  Indian  watch- 
man, bringing  down  the  before-daylight  coffee  and  ships-biscuits 
and  rousing  the  men,  as  was  his  duty, — found  the  big  fellow,  with 
whom  he  used  to  crack  cheery  jokes,  apparently  sound  asleep.  The 
watchman  shook  him  by  the  foot  to  rouse  him  .  .  found  his  big 
friend  stiff  and  cold. 

The  watchman  let  out  a  scream  of  horror  that  woke  us  right 
and  proper,  for  that  day.   .   . 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.     It  was  a  still,  religious  afternoon. 

We  men  ranged  in  two  rows  aft.  The  body  had  been  sewn  up 
in  coarse  canvas,  the  Union  Jack  draped  over  it. 

The  captain,  dapper  in  his  gold-braided  uniform,  stood  over  the 
body  as  it  lay  on  the  plank  from  which  it  was  to  descend  into  the 
sea.  In  a  high,  clear  voice  he  read  that  beautiful  burial-service  for 
the  dead^.  .  an  upward  tilt  of  the  board  in  the  hands  of  two  brown- 
armed  seamen,  the  body  flashed  over  the  side,  to  swing  feet-down, 
laden  with  shot,  for  interminable  days  and  nights,  in  the  vast  tides 
of  the  Pacific. 

No  one  reached  quickly  enough.  The  Union  Jack  went  off  with 
the  body,  like  a  floral  decoration  flung  after.   .  . 

We  drank  the  coffee  brought  to  us  before  dawn,  in  grouchy, 
sleepy,  monosyllabic  silence.  Immediately  after,  the  cattle  were 
to  water  and  feed  .  .  and  a  hungry  lot  they  were  .  .  but  despite 
their  appetites,  with  each  day,  because  of   the  excessive  heat  of 


112  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  tropics,  and  the  confined  existence  that  was  theirs — such  an 
abrupt  transition  from  the  open  range — they  waxed  thinner  and 
thinner,  acquired  more  of  large-eyed  mournfulness  and  an  aspect 
of  almost  human  suffering  in  their  piteous,  pleading  faces.  .  . 

If  the  big  chap  who  succumbed  to  heart  failure  that  night  had 
lived  a  few  days  longer,  he  would  have  wondered  still  more  at  me 
or  anyone  else  surviving  a  day's  work  in  the  hold. 

For  the  thermometer  ran  up  incredibly  .  .  hotter  and  hotter 
it  grew  .  .  and  down  there  in  the  hold  we  had  to  shovel  out  the 
excrement  every  morning  after  breakfast.  It  was  too  infernal  for 
even  the  prudish  Anglo-Saxon  souls  of  us  to  wear  clothes  beyond 
a  breechclout,  and  shoes,  to  protect  our  feet  from  the  harder  hoof. 

Our  eyes  stung  and  watered  from  the  reek  of  the  ammonia  in 
the  cattle-urine.  What  with  the  crowding,  the  bad  air  (despite 
the  canvas  ventilators  let  down)  and  the  sudden  change  from  green 
pasturage  to  dry,  baled  food,  most  of  the  beasts  contracted  "the 
skitters."  This  mess  was  what  we  had  to  shovel  out  through  the 
portholes  .  .  an  offensive-smelling,  greenish,  fluidic  material,  that 
spilled,  the  half  of  it,  always,  from  the  carefully-held  scoop  of 
the  shovel. 

Cursing,  with  the  bitter  sweat  streaming  off  our  bodies  and  into 
our  eyes,  and  with  an  oblique  eye  to  guard  from  heat-maddened, 
frantic  steer-kicks, — each  day,  for  several  hours,  we  suffered  through 
this  hell  .  .  to  emerge  panting,  like  runners  after  a  long  race; 
befouled  .  .  to  throw  ourselves  down  on  the  upper  deck,  under  the 
blue,  wind-free  sky  and  feel  as  if  we  had  come  into  paradise.  .  . 

"I  wish  I  had  never  come  back  to  this  hell-ship,  at  Brisbane!" 
"I  wish  I  had  never  come  aboard  at  all  at  Sydney!" 

•  •••••• 

At  such  times,  and  at  other  odd  ends  of  leisure,  I  brought  my 
Westcott  and  Hort's  Greek  New  Testament  from  my  bunk,  and  with 
the  nasty  smell  of  sheep  close-by,  but  unheeded  through  custom — I 
studied  with  greater  pleasure  than  I  ever  did  before  or  since. 

As  I  said  before,  it  was  not  long  before  these  poor  steers  were 
broken-spirited  things. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  113 

But  there  was  one  among  them  whose  spirit  kept  its  flag  in  the 
air,  "The  Black  Devil,"  as  the  cook  had  named  him  fondly  .  . 
a  steer,  all  glossy-black,  excepting  for  a  white  spot  in  the  center 
of  his  forehead.  He  behaved,  from  the  first,  more  like  a  turbulent 
little  bull  than  a  gelding.  The  cook  fed  him  with  tid-bits  from 
the  galley. 

He  had  evidently  been  someone's  pet  before  he  had  been  sold 
for  live  meat,  to  be  shipped  to  China. 

When  we  took  him  on  board  by  the  horns  he  showed  no  fear  as 
he  rode  in  the  air.  And,  once  on  his  feet  again,  and  loose  on  deck, 
he  showed  us  hell's  own  fight — out  of  sheer  indignation — back  there 
in  Brisbane.  He  flashed  after  us,  with  the  rapid  motions  of  a  bull- 
fight in  the  movies.  Most  of  us  climbed  every  available  thing  to 
get, out  of  his  reach.  He  smashed  here  and  there  through  wooden 
supports  as  if  they  were  of  cardboard. 

The  agile  little  ex-jockey  kept  running  in  front  of  him,  hitting 
him  on  the  nose  and  nimbly  escaping — in  spite  of  his  wing-like, 
wasted  arm,  quicker  than  his  pursuer  .  .  that  smashed  through, 
while  he  ducked  and  turned.   .  . 

"I'll  be  God-damned,"  yelled  the  captain  from  the  safe  vantage 
of  the  bridge,  "fetch  me  my  pistol,"  to  the  cabin  boy,  "I'll  have  to 
shoot  the  beast !" 

All  this  while  the  big  black  Jamaica  cook  had  been  calmly  looking 
on,  leaning  fearlessly  out  over  the  half-door  of  the  galley  .  .  while 
the  infuriated  animal  rushed  back  and  forth. 

The  cook  said  nothing.  He  disappeared,  and  reappeared  with 
a  bunch  of  carrots  which  he  held  out  toward  "The  Black  Devil."  .  . 
In  immediate  transformation,  the  little  beast  stopped,  forgot  his 
anger,  stretched  forth  his  moist,  black  nuzzle,  snifiing  .  .  and  walked 
up  to  the  cook,  accepting  the  carrots.  The  cook  began  to  stroke 
the  animal's  nose.  .  . 

^^You  little  black  devil,"  he  said,  in  a  soft  voice,  "you're  all 
right  .  .  they  don't  understand  you  .  .  but  we're  going  to  be  pals — 
us  two — aren't  we?" 

Then  he  came  out  at  the  door  to  where  the  steer  stood,  took 
"The  Black  Devil,"  as  we  henceforth  called  him,  gently  by  the 
under-jaw,  — and  led  him  into  a  standing-place  right  across  from 
the  galley. 


114  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

As  we  struck  further  north  under  vast  nights  of  stars,  and  days 
of  furnace-hot  sunshine,  the  heat,  confinement,  and  dry,  baled  food 
told  hideously  on  the  animals  .  .  the  sheep  seemed  to  endure  better, 
partly  because  they  were  not  halted  stationary  in  one  spot  and 
could  move  about  a  little  on  the  top  deck.  .  .  But  they  suffered 
hardships  that  came  of  changing  weather. 

Especially  the  cattle  in  the  lower  hold  suffered,  grew  weak  and 
emaciated.  .  .  We  were  ever  on  the  watch  to  keep  them  from  going 
down  .  .  there  was  danger  of  their  sprawling  over  each  other  and 
breaking  legs  in  the  scramble.  So  when  one  tried  to  lie  down, 
his  tail  was  twisted  till  the  suffering  made  him  rise  to  his  feet  .  . 
sometimes  a  steer  would  be  too  weak  to  regain  his  feet  .  .  in  such 
a  case,  in  a  vain  effort  to  make  the  beast  rise,  I  have  seen  the  Irish 
foreman  twist  the  tail  nearly  off,  while  the  animal  at  first  bellowed, 
then  moaned  weakly,  with  anguish  .  .  a  final  boot  at  the  victim  in 
angry  frustration.   .   . 

Last,  a  milky  glaze  would  settle  over  the  beast's  eyes  .  .  and  we 
would  drag  him  out  and  up  by  donkey-engine,  swing  him  over  and 
out,  and  drop  him,  to  float,  a  bobbing  tan  object,  down  our  receding 
ocean-path. 

The  coast  of  Borneo  hovered,  far  and  blue,  in  the  ofRng,  when 
we  struck  our  first,  and  last,  typhoon.  The  mate  avowed  it  was 
merely  the  tail-end  of  a  typhoon;  if  that  was  the  tail-end,  it  is 
good  that  the  body  of  it  did  not  strike  down  on  us. 

The  surface  of  the  ocean  was  kicked  up  into  high,  ridge-running 
masses.  The  tops  of  the  waves  were  caught  in  the  wind  and  whipped 
into  a  wide,  level  froth  as  if  a  giant  egg-beater  were  at  work  .  .  then 
water,  water,  water  came  sweeping  and  mounting  and  climbing 
aboard,  hill  after  bursting  hill. 

The  deck  was  swept  as  by  a  mountain-torrent  .  .  boards  whirled 
about  with  an  uncanny  motion  in  them.  They  came  forward  toward 
you  with  a  bound,  menacing  shin  and  midriff, — then  on  the  motion 
of  the  ship,  they  paused,  and  washed  in  the  opposite  direction. 

Here  and  there  a  steer  broke  loose,  which  had  to  be  caught  and 
tethered  again.  But  in  general  the  animals  were  too  much  fright- 
ened to  do  anything  but  stand  trembling  and  moaning  .  .  when 
they  were  not  floundering  about.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  115 

Down  below  was  a  suffocating  inferno.  For  the  hatches  that 
were  ordinarily  kept  open  for  more  air,  had  to  be  battened  down 
till  the  waves  subsided. 

At  the  very  height  of  the  storm,  we  heard  a  screaming  of  the 
most  abject  fear. 

The  jockey  had  passed,  in  forgetful  excitement,  too  close  to  his 
enemy.  The  Black  Devil — who  had  not  forgotten,  and  gave  him  a 
horn  in  the  side,  under  the  withered  arm. 

Several  sailors  carried  the  bleeding  man  aft  to  the  captain  .  , 
who  dressed  his  wound  with  fair  skill.  The  jockey  was  not  so 
badly  injured,  all  things  considered.  The  thrust  had  slanted  and 
made  only  a  flesh  wound  .  .  which  enabled  the  fellow  to  loaf  on  a 
sort  of  sick-leave,  during  the  rest  of  the  trip. 

The  storm  over,  frantically  we  tore  off  the  hatches  again  .  .  to 
find  only  ten  steers  dead  below.  The  rest  were  gasping  piteously 
for  air.  It  was  a  day's  work,  heaving  the  dead  stock  overboard  .  . 
including  the  two  more  which  died  of  the  after-effects.   .   . 

When  we  went  to  look  the  sheep  over,  we  found  that  over  a  third 
of  them  had  been  washed  overboard.  The  rest  were  huddled,  in 
frightened,  bleating  heaps,  wondering  perhaps  what  kind  of  an 
insane  world  it  was  that  they  had  been  harried  into. 

The  story  of  this  cattleboat  unfolds  freshly  before  me  again,  out 
of  the  records  of  memory  .  .  the  pitiful  suffering  of  the  cattle  .  . 
the  lives  and  daily  doings  of  the  rowdy,  likeable  men,  who  were  really 
still  undeveloped  children,  and  would  so  go  down  to  the  grave  .  . 
with  their  boasting  and  continual  vanity  of  small  and  trivial  things 
of  life. 

All  the  time  I  was  keeping  a  diary  of  my  adventures  .  .  in  a  large, 
brown  copybook,  with  flexible  covers.  I  carried  it,  tightened  away, 
usually,  in  the  lining  of  my  coat,  but  occasionally  I  left  it  under 
the  mattress  of  my  bunk. 

Nippers  observed  me  writing  in  it  one  day. 

That  night  it  was  gone.     I  surmised  who  had  taken  it. 

Seeking  Nippers,  I  came  upon  him  haltingly  reading  my  diary 
aloud  to  an  amused  circle  of  cattlemen,  in  his  quarters  aft. 


116  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Give  me  that  book  back!"  I  demanded. 

He  ignored  me. 

"Give  him  a  rap  in  the  kisser,  Skinny !" 

I  drew  back,  aiming  a  blow  at  Nippers.  He  flung  the  book  down 
and  was  on  me  like  the  tornado  we  had  just  run  through  .  .  he  was 
a  natural-born  fighter  .  .  in  a  twinkling  I  was  on  the  floor,  with  a 
black  eye,  a  bleeding  mouth. 

I  flung  myself  to  my  feet,  full  of  fury  .  .  then  something  went 
in  my  brain  like  the  click  of  a  camera-shutter  .  .  I  had  an  hallucina- 
tion of  Uncle  Landon,  coming  at  me  with  a  club.   .   . 

I  plumped  into  a  corner,  crouching.  "Don't  hit  me  any  more  .  . 
please  don't,  Uncle  Lan!" 

"He's  gone  crazy !" 

"Naw,  he's  only  a  bloody,  bleedin'  coward,"  returned  another 
voice,  in  surprise  and  disgust. 

Someone  spat  on  me.  I  was  let  up  at  last  .  .  I  staggered  forward 
to  my  bunk.  My  book  had  been  handed  back  to  me.  It's  a  wonder 
I  didn't  throw  myself  into  the  sea,  in  disgust  over  the  queer  fit 
that  had  come  over  me.  I  lay  half  the  night,  puzzling  .  .  was  I  a 
coward  ? 

Not  unless  an  unparalleled  change  had  occurred  in  me.  I  had 
fought  with  other  children,  when  a  boy  .  .  had  whipped  two  lads  at 
once,  when  working  in  the  Composite  factory,  that  time  they  spit 
into  my  book. 

•  ••«••• 

One  day  a  fishing- junk  hove  into  sight,  just  as  if  it  had  sailed 
out  of  a  Maxfield  Parrish  illustration, — swinging  there  in  the  mouth 
of  a  blood-red  sunset  .  .  then,  like  magic,  appeared  another  and 
another  and  another.   .   . 

"Fishing-junks,"  ejaculated  the  mate,  " — pretty  far  out,  too, 
but  a  Chink'll  risk  his  life  for  a  few  bleedin'  cash  .  .  and  yet  he 
won't  fight  at  all  .  .  an'  if  you  do  him  an  injury  he's  like  as  not 
likely  to  up  an'  commit  suicide  at  your  door,  to  get  even!" 

"That's  a  bally  orf ul  way  to  get  even  with  a  henemy !"  exclaimed 
a  stoker,  who  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  forward  hatch. 

"I  should  say  so,  too !" 

Then,  far  and  faint,  were  heard  a  crew  of  Chinese  sailors,  on 
the  nearest  junk,  singing  a  curious,  falsetto  chantey  as  they  hauled 
on  a  bamboo-braced  sail.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  117 

"A  feller  wot  never  travelled  wouldn't  bloody  well  believe  they 
was  such  queer  people  in  the  world,"  further  observed  the  philo- 
sophic coal-heaver. 

Next  morning  the  coast  of  China  lay  right  against  us,  on  the 
starboard  side  .  .  we  ran  into  the  thick  of  a  fleet  of  sampans,  boats 
fashioned  flat  like  overgrown  rowboats,  propelled  each  by  a  huge 
sculling  oar,  from  the  stern  ,  .  they  were  fishers  who  manned 
them  .  .  two  or  three  to  a  boat  .  .  huge,  bronze-bodied,  fine-muscled, 
breech-clouted  men  .  .  as  they  sculled  swiftly  to  give  us  sea-room 
each  one  looked  fit  to  be  a  sculptor's  model. 

Their  bodies  shone  in  the  sun  like  bronze.  Several,  fearing  we 
might  run  them  down,  as  we  clove  straight  through  their  midst, 
raised  their  arms  with  a  shout  full  of  pleading  and  fright. 

"What's  the  matter .?  are  they  trying  to  murder  some  of  these 
poor  chaps.?"  I  asked. 

"No  .  .  we're  just  having  a  little  fun  .  .  what's  the  life  of  a  Chink 
matter.?" 

**I  say,  if  the  Chinks  up  where  the  Boxers  are  fighting  are  big 
and  strong  as  them  duffers,  here's  one  that  don't  want  no  shore- 
leave  !"  commented  someone,  as  we  stood  ranged  by  the  side. 

"I  always  thought  Chinamen  was  runts." 

"Oh,  it's  only  city  Chinks — mostly  from  Canton,  that  come  to 
civilized  countries  to  run  laundries  .  .  but  these  are  the  real 
Chinamen." 

After  the  cattle  had  been  unladen,  the  crew  were  to  be  taken  down 
to  Shanghai  and  dumped  ashore  .  .  as  it  was  an  English  Treaty 
port,  that  would  be,  technically,  living  up  to  the  ship's  articles, 
which  guaranteed  that  the  cattlemen  aboard  would  be  given  passage 
back  to  English  ground.  .  . 

But  I  was  all  excitement  over  the  prospect  of  making  my  way 
ashore  to  where  the  Allied  troops  were  fighting.  .  . 

Dawn  .  .  we  were  anchored  in  Taku  Bay  among  the  warships  of 
the  Allied  nations  .  .  grey  warships  gleaming  in  the  sun  like  silver  .  . 
the  sound  of  bugles  .  .  flags  of  all  nations  .  .  of  as  many  colours  as 
the  coat  of  Joseph. 


118  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Well,  here  we  are  at  last !" 


Next  day  the  work  of  unloading  the  cattle  began  .  .  hoisted  again 
by  the  horns  from  our  boat  of  heavy  draught  to  the  hold  of  a  coast- 
ing steamer,  that  had  English  captain  and  mates,  and  a  Chinese 
crew. 

Some  of  the  steers  were  so  weak  that  they  died  on  deck  .  .  as 
they  were  dying,  butchers  cut  their  throats  so  their  beef  could  be 
called  fresh. 

The  only  one  who  desired  to  go  ashore  there,  I  made  my  way, 
when  it  was  dark  and  the  last  load  of  steers  was  being  transferred 
to  shore,  down  below  to  the  hold  of  the  coaster.  I  stood  in  a  corner, 
behind  an  iron  ladder,  so  that  the  cattle  couldn't  crush  me  during 
the  night  .  .  for  the  Chinese  had  turned  them  loose,  there,  in  a  mass. 


I  stumbled  ashore  at  Tongku,  a  station  up  a  way  on  the  banks  of 
the  Pei  Ho  river. 

My  first  night  ashore  in  China  was  a  far  cry  from  the  China  of 
my  dreams  .  .  the  Cathay  of  Marco  Polo,  with  its  towers  of  porce- 
lain. .  .  I  crept,  to  escape  a  cold  drizzle,  under  the  huge  tarpaulin 
which  covered  a  great  stack  of  tinned  goods — army  supplies.  A 
soldier  on  guard  over  the  stack,  an  American  soldier,  spotted  me. 

"Come,  my  lad,"  lifting  up  the  tarpaulin,  "what  are  you  doing 
there.?" 

" — Trying  to  keep  from  the  wet !" 

" — run  off  from  one  of  the  transports  .f*" 

"Yes,"  was  as  good  an  answer  as  any. 

"You're  pretty  cold  .  .  your  teeth  are  chattering.  Here,  take  a 
swig  o'  this." 

And  the  sentinel  reached  me  a  flask  of  whiskey  from  which  I 
drew  a  nip.  Unaccustomed  as  I  was  to  drink,  it  nearly  strangled 
me.  It  went  all  the  way  down  like  fire.  Then  it  spread  with  a 
pleasant  warmth  all  through  my  body.   .   . 

"Stay  here  to-night  .   .  rather  uncomfortable  bed,  but  at  least 

it's  dry.     No  one  'ull  bother  you  .  .  in  the  morning  Captain , 

who  is  in  charge  of  the  commissariat  here,  might  give  you  a  job." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  119 

That  next  morning  Captain gave  me  a  job  as  mate,  eighty 

dollars  Mex.  and  a  place  to  sleep,  along  with  others,  in  a  Com- 
pound, and  find  my  food  at  my  own  expense.  .  . 

Mate,  on  a  supply-launch  that  went  in  and  out  to  and  from  the 
transports,  that  were  continually  anchoring  in  the  bay.  Our  job 
was  to  keep  the  officers'  mess  in  supplies.   .   . 

"And,  if  you  stick  to  your  job  six  months,"  I  was  informed, 
you'll  be  entitled  to  free  transportation  back  to  San  Francisco." 

My  captain  was  a  neat,  young  Englishman,  with  the  merest  hint 
of  a  moustache  of  fair  gold. 

Our  crew — two  Chinamen  who  jested  about  us  between  them- 
selves in  a  continuous  splutter  of  Chinese.  We  could  tell,  by  their 
grimaces  and  gestures  .  .  we  rather  liked  their  harmless,  human 
impudence  .  .  as  long  as  they  did  the  work,  while  we  lazed  about, 
talking  .  .  while  up  and  down  the  yellow  sweep  of  the  Pei-ho  the 
little  boat  tramped. 

"It's  too  bad  you  didn't  arrive  on  the  present  scene  a  few  weeks 
sooner,"  said  my  young  captain  .  .  "it  was  quite  exciting  here,  at 
that  time.  I  used  to  have  to  take  the  boathook  and  push  oif  the 
Chinese  corpses  that  caught  on  the  prow  of  the  boat  as  they  floated 
down,  thick  .  .  they  seemed  to  catch  hold  of  the  prow  as  if  still 
alive.     It  was  uncanny !" 

We  slept,  rolled  up  in  our  blankets,  on  the  floor  of  a  Chinese 
compound  .  .  adventurers  bound  up  and  down  the  river,  to  and 
from  Tien-Tsin  and  Woo-shi-Woo  and  Pekin  .  .  a  sort  of  cara- 
vanserai.  .   . 

Though  it  was  the  fall  of  the  year  and  the  nights  were  cold 
enough  to  make  two  blankets  feel  good,  yet  some  days  the  sun 
blazed  down  intolerably  on  our  boat,  on  the  river.   .   . 

When  we  grew  thirsty  the  captain  and  myself  resorted  to  our 
jug  of  distilled  water.  I  had  been  warned  against  drinking  the 
yellow,  pea-soup-like  water  of  the  Pei-ho.   .   . 

But  one  afternoon  I  found  our  water  had  run  out. 

So  I  took  the  gourd  used  by  the  Chinese  crew,  and  dipped  up, 
as  they  did,  the  river  water. 

The  captain  clutched  me  by  the  wrist. 


120  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Don't  drink  that  water !  If  you'd  seen  what  I  have,  floating  in 
it,  you'd  be  afraid !" 

"What  won't  hurt  a  Chinaman,  won't  hurt  me,"  I  boasted.  .  . 

The  result  of  my  folly  was  a  mild  case  of  dysentery.  .  . 

In  a  few  days  I  was  so  weak  that  I  went  around  as  if  I  had  no 
bones  left  in  my  body.     And  I  wanted  to  leave  the  country.     And  I 

repaired  to  Captain who  had  given  me  the  job,  and  asked  him 

for  my  pay  and  my  discharge.  He  lit  into  me,  disgusted,  upbraiding 
me  for  a  worthless  tramp.  .  . 

"I  might  have  known  that  you  were  of  that  ilk,  from  the  first, 
just  by  looking  at  you!" 

He  handed  me  the  eighty  dollars  in  Mexican  silver,  that  was 
coming  to  me.  .  .  I  repaid  the  captain  the  forty  I  had  borrowed, 
for  food. 

"Sick !  yes,  sick  of  laziness !" 

Captain  was  partly  right.  I  had  an  uncontrollable  dis- 
taste for  the  monotony  of  daily  work,  repeated  in  the  same  environ- 
ment, surrounded  by  the  same  scenery  .  .  but  I  was  also  quite  weak 
and  sick,  and  I  am  persuaded,  that,  if  I  had  stayed  on  there,  I 
might  have  died. 


I  sat  on  one  of  the  wharves  and  played  host  to  a  crowd  of  romantic 
thoughts  that  moved  in  their  pageant  through  my  brain  .  .  now  I 
would  go  on  to  Pekin  and  see  the  great  Forbidden  City.  Now  I 
would  dress  in  Chinese  clothes  and  beg  my  way  through  the  very 
heart  of  the  Chinese  Empire  .  .  and  write  a  book,  subsequently, 
about  my  experiences  and  adventures  .  .  and  perhaps  win  a  medal 
of  some  famous  society  for  it  .  .  and  I  had  a  dream  of  mari-ying 
some  quaintly  beautiful  mandarin's  daughter,  of  becoming  a  famous, 
revered  Chinese  scholar,  bringing  together  with  my  influence  the 
East  and  the  West.  .  . 

I  reached  so  far,  in  the  dream,  as  to  buy  several  novels  of  the 
Chinese,  printed  in  their  characters,  of  an  itinerant  vendor.   .   . 

The  everyday  world  swung  into  my  ken  again. 

Three  junks,  laden  with  American  marines,  dropping  down  the 
river  from  Pekin,  cut  across  my  abstracted  gaze  .  .  the  boys  were 
singing. 

They  marched  off  on  the  dock  on  which  I  sat.     They  were  sta- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  121 

tioned  right  where  they  deployed  from  the  junks.  Men  were  put 
in  guard  over  them. 

At  Tien  Tsin  they  had  behaved  rather  badly,  I  was  told  by  one 
of  them, — had  gone  on  a  Samshu  jag  .  .  a  Chinese  drink,  worse 
than  the  worst  American  "rot-gut."  .  . 

"Wisht  I  c'd  git  off  the  dock  an'  rustle  up  another  drink  some- 
w^heres." 

"They  wouldn't  let  us  off  this  dock  fer  love  nor  money,"  spoke 
up  a  lithe,  blue-shaven  marine  to  me — the  company's  barber,  I 
afterward  learned  him  to  be.   .  . 

"Yah,  we  got  ter  stay  here  all  afternoon,  an'  me  t'roat  's  es  dry 
es  san'paper." 

"Where  are  they  taking  you  to,  from  here?" 

"Manila!  .  .  the  Indiana's  waitin'  out  in  th'  bay  fer  us." 

" — Wish  I  could  get  off  with  you !"  I  remarked. 

"Wot's  the  matter?    On  th'  bum  here?" 

"Yes." 

Immediately  the  barber  and  two  others,  his  pals,  became  intensely, 
suspiciously  so,  interested  in  my  desire  to  sail  with  them.  .  . 

" — Tell  you  wot,"  and  the  company  barber  reached  into  his 
pocket  with  a  surreptitious  glance  about,  "if  you'll  take  these  bills 
an'  sneak  past  to  that  coaster  lyin'  along  the  next  dock,  the  Chinese 
steward  'ull  sell  you  three  bottles  o'  whiskey  fer  these,"  and  he 
handed  me  a  bunch  of  bills  .  ."  an'  w'en  you  come  back  with  th' 
booze,  we'll  see  to  it  that  you  get  took  out  to  the  transport  with 
us,  all  right  .  .  wpn't  we,  boys?" 

*' — betcher  boots  we  will." 

"God,  but  this  is  like  heaven  to  me,"  exclaimed  the  barber,  as 
he  tilted  up  his  bottle,  while  the  two  others  stood  about  him,  to 
keep  him  from  being  seen.  The  three  of  them  drank  their  bottles 
of  whiskey  as  if  it  was  water. 

"That  saved  me  life.  .  ." 

"An'  mine,  too.    You  go  to  Manila  wit'  us,  all  right, — ^kid !" 

Toward  dusk  came  the  sharp  command  for  the  men  to  march 
aboard  the  coaster  that  had  drawn  up  for  them.  The  boys  kept 
their  word.     They  loaded  me  down  with  their  accoutrements  to 


122  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

carry.  I  marched  up  the  gangway  with  them,  and  we  were  off  to 
the  Indiana. 

I  was  the  first,  almost,  to  scamper  aboard  the  waiting  transport 
in  the  gathering  dusk  .  .  and,  to  make  sure  of  staying  aboard,  I 
hurried  down  one  ladder  after  the  other,  till  I  reached  the  heavy 
darkness  of  the  lowermost  hold.  Having  nothing  to  do  but  sleep, 
I  stumbled  over  some  oblong  boxes,  climbed  onto  one,  and  com- 
posed myself  for  the  night,  using  a  coil  of  rope  for  a  pillow. 

I  woke  to  find  a  grey  patch  of  day  streaming  down  the  ladder- 
way.     My  eyes  soon  adjusted  themselves  to  the  obscurity. 

And  then  it  was  that  I  gave  a  great,  scared  leap.  And  with 
difficulty  I  held  myself  back  from  crying  out. 

Those  curious  oblong  boxes  among  which  I  had  passed  the  night — 
they  were  hermetically  sealed  coffins,  and  there  were  dead  soldiers 
in  them.  Ridges  of  terror  crept  along  my  flesh.  Stifling  a  panic 
in  me,  I  forced  myself  to  go  slow  as  I  climbed  the  iron  rungs  to  the 
hold  above  .  .  where  living  soldiers  lay  sleeping  in  long  rows.  .  . 

Still  undetected,  I  scrambled  along  an  aisle  between  them  and 
put  myself  away  in  a  sort  of  life-preserver  closet.  Not  till  I  had 
heard  the  familiar  throb  of  the  propeller  in  motion  for  a  long 
time,  did  I  come  forth. 

•  •••••• 

During  the  voyage  of,  I  believe,  eight  days,  I  loafed  about,  lining 
up  for  rations  with  the  boys  .  .  no  one  questioned  me.  My  engi- 
neer's clothes  that  I  had  taken,  in  lieu  of  part  of  my  wages,  from  the 
slop-chest  of  The  South  Sea  King,  caused  the  officers  of  the  marines 
to  think  I  belonged  to  the  ship's  crew  .  ,  and  the  ship-officers  must 
have  thought  I  was  in  some  way  connected  with  the  marines  .  , 
anyhow,  I  was  not  molested,  and  I  led  a  life  much  to  my  liking  .  . 
an  easy-going  and  loafing  and  tale-telling  one  .  .  mixing  about  and 
talking  and  listening  .  .  and  reading  back-number  magazines. 

One  day  my  friend  the  barber  called  me  aside: 

"Say,  kid,  I've  been  delegated  to  tell  you  that  you've  got  lice." 
I  flamed  indignant. 

"That's  a  God-damned  lie!  and  whoever  told  you  so  is  a  God- 
damned liar,  too !    I  never  had  a  louse  in  my  life." 

"Easy !  Easy !  .  .  no  use  gittin'  huffy  .  .  if  it  ain't  lice  you  got, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  123 

wot  you  scratchin'  all  the  time  f er  ?  Look  in  the  crotch  of  yer  pants 
and  the  seams  of  your  shirt,  an'  see!" 

I  had  been  scratching  a  lot  .  .  and  wondering  what  was  wrong  .  . 
my  breast  was  all  red  .  .  but  I  had  explained  it  to  myself  that  I 
was  wearing  a  coarse  woolen  undershirt  next  my  skin  .  .  that  I 
had  picked  up  from  the  slop-chest,  also. 

The  barber  walked  jauntily  away,  leaving  me  standing  sullenly 
alone. 

I  sneaked  into  the  toilet,  looking  to  see  if  anyone  was  about.  I 
turned  my  shirt  back.  To  my  horror,  my  loathing, — the  soldier's 
accusation  was  true!  .  .  they  were  so  thick,  thanks  to  my  ignorant 
neglect,  that  I  could  see  them  moving  in  battalions  .  .  if  I  had  been 
the  victim  of  some  filthy  disease,  I  could  scarcely  have  felt  more 
beyond  the  pale,  more  a  pariah.  I  had  not  detected  them  before, 
because  I  was  ignorant  of  the  thought  of  having  them,  and  because 
their  grey  colour  was  exactly  that  of  the  inside  of  my  woolen  shirt. 

I  threw  the  shirt  away,  content  to  shiver  for  a  few  days  till  we 
had  steamed  to  warmer  weather  .  .  I  scrubbed  and  scrubbed  and 
scrubbed  myself.  .  .  I  had,  up  to  now,  had  experience  with  head-lice 
only  .  .  as  a  child,  in  school.   .   . 

I  look  back  with  a  shudder  even  yet  to  that  experience.  During 
my  subsequent  tramp-career  I  never  could  grow  callous  to  vermin, 
as  a  few  others  that  I  met,  did.  Once  I  met  a  tramp  who  advised 
me  not  to  bother  about  'em  .  .  and  you  would  soon  get  used  to 
'em  .  .  and  not  feel  them  biting  at  all  .  .  but  most  tramps  "boil  up" — 
that  is,  take  off  their  clothes,  a  piece  at  a  time,  and  boil  them — when- 
ever they  find  opportunity. 

Manila.  A  brief  adventure  there  .  .  a  bum  for  a  few  weeks, 
hanging  around  soldiers'  barracks,  blacking  shoes  for  free  meals  .  . 
till  Provost  Marshal  General  Bell,  in  an  effort  to  clear  the  islands 
of  boys  who  were  vags  and  mascots  of  regiments,  gave  me  and 
several  other  rovers  and  stowaways  free  transportation  back  to 
America.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

A  brief  stop  at  Nagasaki  to  have  a  broken  propeller  shaft  mended : 
a  long  Pacific  voyage  .  .  then  hilly  San  Francisco  one  golden 
morning.  .  . 


124  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

All  these  ocean  days  I  peeled  potatoes  and  helped  to  dish  out 
rations  to  the  lined-up  soldiers  at  meal-times  .  .  one  slice  of  meat, 
one  or  two  potatoes,  to  a  tin  plate.  .  . 

For  long  hours  I  listened  to  their  lying  tales  and  boasting  .  . 
then  lied  and  boasted,  myself.  .  . 

My  most  unique  adventure  aboard  the  Thomas;  making  friends 
with  a  four-times-enlisted  soldier  named  Lang,  who  liked  army  life 
because,  he  said,  outside  of  drills  and  dress  parade,  it  was  lazy 
and  easy  .  .  and  it  gave  him  leisure  to  read  and  re-read  his  Shake- 
speare.   He  was  a  Shakespearean  scholar.  .   . 

"It's  the  best  life  in  the  world  .  .  no  worries  or  responsibilities 
about  food  and  lodging — it  spoils  a  fellow  for  any  other  kind  of 
life  .  .  the  officers  are  always  decent  to  a  fellow  who  respects  him- 
self as  a  soldier  and  citizen." 

Lang  and  I  became  good  pals.  Day  after  day  I  sat  listening  to 
him,  as,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  rumble  and  pulse  of  the  great 
boat  a-move,  he  quoted  and  explained  Shakespeare  to  me,  nearly 
always  without  the  book. 

His  talk  was  fascinating — except  when  he  insisted  on  repeating 
to  me  his  own  wretched  rhymes  .  .  in  which  he  showed  he  had  learned 
nothing  about  how  to  write  poetry  from  his  revered  Shakespeare  .  . 
it  was  very  bad  Kiplingesque  stuff  .  .  much  like  my  own  bad  verse 
of  that  period.   .   . 

Once  Lang  recited  by  heart  the  whole  of  King  Lear  to  me,  hav- 
ing me  hold  a  copy  of  the  play,  to  prove  that  he  did  not  fumble 
a  single  line  or  miss  a  single  word  .  .  which  he  did  not.  .  . 

Lang  was  a  prodigious  drunkard.  At  Nagasaki  I  rescued  him 
from  the  water-butt.  Coming  back  drunk  on  rice  wine,  he  had 
stuck  his  head  down  for  a  cool  drink,  as  a  horse  does.  And  in  he 
had  tumbled,  head-first.  If  I  had  not  seen  his  legs  wiggling  futilely 
in  the  air,  and  drawn  him  forth,  dripping,  he  would  have  drowned, 
as  the  butt  was  too  solid  for  his  struggles  to  dump,  and  he  couldn't 
make  a  sound  for  help. 


As  we  neared  San  Francisco  several  of  the  boys  spoke  to  me  of 
taking  up  a  purse  for  my  benefit.  Soldiers  are  always  generous 
and  warm-hearted — the  best  men,  individually,  in  the  world. 

I  said  no  to  them,  that  they  must  not  take  up  a  collection  for 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  125 

me  .  .  I  did  not  really  feel  that  way,  at  heart,  but  I  liked  better 
seeming  proud  and  independent,  American  and  self-reliant.   .   . 

Later  on,  at  the  very  dock,  I  acceded  .  .  but  now  I  was  punished 
for  my  hj'pocrisy.  The  boys  were  so  eager  to  be  home  again,  they 
only  threw  together  about  five  dollars  for  me  .  .  when,  if  I  hadn't 
been  foolish,  I  might  have  had  enough  to  loaf  with,  say  a  month,  at 
San  Francisco,  and  do  a  lot  of  reading  in  the  Library,  and  in  books 
of  poetry  that  I  might  have  picked  up  at  second-hand  book 
stores.  .  . 

However,  I  gathered  together,  before  I  went  ashore,  two  suits  of 
khaki  and  two  army  blankets,  and  a  pair  of  good  army  shoes  that 
afterwards  seemed  never  to  wear  out. 

And  a  young  chap  named  Simmons,  who  had  been  sergeant,  had 
joined  the  army  by  running  away  from  home,  took  me  to  an  obscure 
hotel  as  his  valet  .  .  he  wanted  to  "put  on  dog,"  as  the  Indians  say. 

He  had  parents  of  wealth,  back  in  Des  Moines. 

I  served  him  as  his  valet  for  the  two  weeks  he  stayed  at  the  hotel. 
He  had  been  shot  through  the  left  foot  so  that  a  tendon  was  severed, 
and  he  had  to  walk  with  a  cane,  with  a  foot  that  flopped  at  every 
step. 

He  gave  me  fifteen  dollars  for  wages.  After  he  had  departed 
I  rented  a  cheap  room  for  a  week. 


Standing  in  front  of  a  store  on  Kearney  Street,  one  afternoon, 
dressed  in  my  suit  of  soldier's  khaki,  looking  at  the  display  in  the 
window,  I  got  the  cue  that  shaped  my  subsequent  adventures  in 
California.   .   . 

"Poor  lad,"  I  heard  one  girl  say  to  another,  standing  close  by, 
"he  looks  so  sick  and  thin,  I'm  sorry  for  him." 

They  did  not  notice  that  my  soldier's  uniform  had  cloth  but- 
tons. Simmons  had  made  me  put  cloth  buttons  on,  at  the  hotel, 
— had  furnished  them  to  me 

"I  don't  want  you  going  about  the  other  way  .  .  you're  such  a 
nut,  you  might  get  into  trouble." 

Mule-drivers  and  others  in  subsidiary  service  were  allowed  khaki 
with  cloth  buttons  only  .  .  at  that  time.  .  ,  I  don't  know  how  it 
goes  now. 


126  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  girls'  taking  me  for  a  sick,  discharged  soldier  made  me  think. 
I  would  travel  in  that  guise. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  > 

With  a  second-hand  Shakespeare,  in  one  volume,  of  wretched 
print,  with  a  much-abused  school-copy  of  Caesar,  in  the  Latin  (of 
whose  idiomatic  Latin  I  have  never  tired),  an  extra  suit  of  khaki, 
a  razor,  tooth-brush,  and  tooth-powder — and  a  cake  of  soap — all 
wrapped  up  in  my  army  blankets,  I  set  forth  on  my  peregrinations 
as  blanket-stiff  or  "bindle-bum." 

Where  I  saw  I  could  escape  without  awkward  questioning,  I 
played  the  convalescent  ex-soldier  .  .  I  thrived.  My  shadow-thin- 
ness almost  turned  to  fatness.  It  would  have,  had  there  been  any 
disposition  toward  obesity  in  me.  .  . 

At  times  I  was  ashamed  of  doing  nothing  .  .  queer  spurts  of 
American  economic  conscience.  .  . 

Once  I  worked,  plowing  .  .  to  drive  the  horses  as  far  as  a  tall 
tree  for  shade,  at  the  end  of  the  third  day,  sneak  back  to  the 
house  .  .  and  out  to  the  highway  with  my  bundle  and  my  belongings, 
kicking  up  my  heels  ecstatically,  glad  to  be  freed  from  work. 

I  plumped  down  in  a  fence  corner  and  did  not  stir  till  I  had 
read  a  whole  play  of  Shakespeare,  and  a  snatch  of  my  Cassar. 

Once  or  twice,  sheriffs  who  were  bent  on  arresting  me  because  I 
had  no  visible  means  of  support,  let  me  go,  because  it  awed  them 
to  find  a  tramp  reading  Shakespeare.  .  . 

"It's  a  shame,  a  clever  lad  like  you  bein'  a  bum!" 

Tramps,  though  anti-social  in  the  larger  aspects  of  society  (as, 
for  that  matter,  all  special  classes  are,  from  millionaires  down — or 
up),  are  more  than  usually  companionable  among  themselves.  I 
never  lived  and  moved  with  a  better-hearted  group  of  people. 

By  "jungle"  camp-fires — ("the  jungles,"  any  tramp  rendezvous 
located  just  outside  the  city  limits,  to  be  beyond  police  jurisdic- 
tion), in  jails,  on  freights  .  .  I  found  a  feeling  of  sincere  compan- 
ionship .  .  a  companionship  that  without  ostentation  and  as  a 
matter  of  course,  shared  the  last  cent,  the  last  meal  .  .  when  every 
cent  was  the  last  cent,  every  meal  the  last  meal  .  .  the  rest  depend- 
ing on  luck  and  Providence.  .  . 

Tramps  often  travel  in  pairs.     I  picked  up  a  "buddy"  .   ,   a 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  127 

short,  thick-set  man  of  young  middle  age,  of  Scandinavian  descent 
.  .  so  blond  that  his  eyebrows  were  white  in  contrast  with  his  face, 
which  was  ruddy  with  work  in  the  sun.  He,  like  me,  was  a  "gaycat" 
or  tramp  who  is  not  above  occasional  work  (as  the  word  meant 
then — now  it  means  a  cheap,  no-account  grafter).  He  had  recently 
been  working  picking  oranges  .  .  previous  to  that,  he  had  been 
employed  in  a  Washington  lumber  camp. 

Together  we  drifted  along  the  seacoast  south  to  San  Diego  .  . 
then  back  again  to  Santa  Barbara  .  .  for  no  reason  but  just  to 
drift.  Then  we  sauntered  over  to  San  Bernardino — "San  Berdu," 
as  the  tramps  call  it.  .  . 

It  struck  chilly,  one  night.  So  chilly  that  we  went  into  the 
freight3^ard  to  put  up  in  an  empty  box-car  till  the  sun  of  next  day 
rose  to  warm  the  world. 

We  found  a  car.  There  were  many  other  men  already  there,  which 
was  good ;  the  animal  heat  of  their  bodies  made  the  interior  warmer. 

The  interior  of  the  car  sounded  like  a  Scotch  bagpipe  a-drone  .  . 
what  with  snoring,  breaking  of  wind  in  various  ways,  groaning, 
and  muttering  thickly  in  dreams  .  .  the  air  was  sickeningly  thick  and 
fetid.     But  to  open  a  side  door  meant  to  let  in  the  cold. 

Softly  my  buddy  and  I  drew  off  our  shoes,  putting  them  under 
bur  heads  to  serve  as  pillows,  and  also  to  keep  them  from  being 
stolen.  (Often  a  tramp  comes  along  with  a  deft  enough  touch  to 
untie  a  man's  shoes  from  his  feet  without  waking  him.  I've  heard 
of  its  being  done.)  We  wrapped  our  feet  in  newspapers,  then.  Our 
coats  we  removed,  to  wrap  them  about  us  .  .  one  keeps  warmer  that 
way  than  by  just  wearing  the  coat.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

The  door  on  each  side  crashed  back! 

"Here's  another  nest  full  of  'em!" 

"Come  on  out,  boys  !" 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  queried. 

"  'stoo  cold  out  here.  We  have  a  nice,  warm  calaboose  waitin' 
fer  ye!" 

Grunting  and  grumbling,  we  dropped  to  the  cinders,  one  after 
the  other.  A  posse  of  deputies  and  citizens,  had,  for  some  dark 
reason,  rounded  us  up. 


128  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

One  or  two  made  a  break  for  it,  and  escaped,  followed  by  a  random 
shot.     After  that,  no  one  else  cared  to  be  chased  after  by  a  bullet. 

They  conducted  us  to  what  they  had  termed  "the  calaboose,"  a 
big,  ramshackle,  one-roomed  barn-like  structure.  Piled  in  so  thick 
that  we  almost  had  to  stand  up,  there  were  so  many  of  us — ^we  were 
held  there  till  next  morning. 

But  we  were  served,  then,  a  good  breakfast,  at  the  town's  expense. 
The  owner  of  the  restaurant  was  a  queer  little,  grey-faced,  stringy 
fellow.  He  fed  us  all  the  buckwheat  cakes  and  sausages  we  could 
hold,  and  won  every  hobo's  heart,  by  giving  all  the  coffee  we  could 
drink  .  .  we  held  our  cups  with  our  hands  about  them,  grateful  for 
the  warmth. 

"Say,  you're  all  right,  mister!"  ventured  a  tramp  to  the  pro- 
prietor, as  he  walked  by. 

"Bet  your  God-damned  life  I'm  all  right !  .  .  because  I  ain't 
nothin'  but  a  bum  myself  .  .  yes,  an'  I'm  not  ashamed  of  it,  neither  .  . 
before  I  struck  this  burg  an'  started  this  "ham-and"  and  made  it 
pay,  I  was  on  the  road  same  es  all  o'  you !" 

"Kin  I  have  more  pancakes,  boss,  an'  another  cup  of  coffee?" 

"You  sure  can,  bo!  .  .  es  I  was  sayin',  I'm  a  bum  myself,  an' 
proud  of  it  .  .  and  I  think  these  here  damn  bulls  (policemen  .  .  who 
were  sitting  nearby,  waiting  for  us  to  finish)  have  mighty  little  to 
'tend  to,  roundin'  up  you  boys,  now  the  orange-pickin'  season's  over 
with,  an'  puttin'  you  away  like  this  .  .  why,  if  any  one  of  them  was 
half  as  decent  as  one  o'  you  bums " 

"Sh!  fer  Christ's  sake!"  I  admonished,  "they're  hearing  you." 

*'That's  jest  what  I  want  'em  to  do  .  .  I  don't  owe  nothin'  to  nc 
man,  an'  it's  time  someone  told  'em  somethin'." 

Breakfast  over,  we  were  marched  off  to  the  courthouse.  We  were 
turned  loose  together  in  a  large  room.  We  felt  so  good  with  the 
sausage,  cakes  and  coffee  in  our  bellies,  that  we  pushed  each  other 
about,  sang,  jigged,  whistled. 

As  we  had  walked  in,  I  had  asked,  of  the  cop  who  walked  by  my 
side — ^who  seemed  affable  .  . 

"Say,  mister,  after  all  what's  the  idea?" 

"We  had  to  make  an  example,"  he  returned,  frankly. 

"I  don't  quite  get  you!" 

"Last  week  a  bunch  of  bums  dropped  off  here,  at  our  town,  and 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  129 

they  almost  ran  the  diggings  for  about  twenty-four  hours  .  .  insulted 
women  on  the  streets  .  .  robbed  ice-boxes  .  .  even  stole  the  clothes 
off  the  lines." 

"In  other  words,  you  mean  that  a  bunch  of  drunken  yeggs  dropped 
in  on  the  town,  gutted  it,  and  then  jumped  out  .  .  and  we  poor, 
harmless  bums  are  the  ones  that  have  to  pay." 

" — guess  that's  about  how  it  is." 

I  passed  the  word  along  the  line.  My  companion  tramps  cursed 
the  yegg  and  his  ways.  .  . 

"They're  always  raisin'  hell  .  .  an'  we  git  the  blame  .  .  when  all 
we  want  is  not  loot,  but  hand-outs  and  a  cup  o'  coffee  .  .  and  a 
piece  of  change  now  and  then." 

The  yegg,  the  tiger  among  tramps — the  criminal  tramp — despises 
the  ordinary  bum  and  the  "gaycat."  And  they  in  turn  fear  him 
for  his  ruthlessness  and  recklessness. 

He  joins  with  them  at  their  camp-fires  .  .  rides  with  them  on  the 
road  .  .  robs  his  store  or  house,  or  cracks  his  safe,  then  flies  on, 
taking  the  blinds  or  decking  on  top  of  a  "flyer."  The  law,  missing 
the  right  quarry,  descends  on  the  slower-moving,  harmless  bum. 
And  often  some  poor  "fall-guy"  gets  a  good  "frame-up"  for  a  job 
he  never  thought  of  .  .  and  the  majesty  of  the  law  stands  vindi- 
cated. 

The  charge  against  us  was  vagrancy.     We  were  tried  by  twos. 

"Come  on,  buddy !  .  .  you  an'  your  pal." 

My  companion  and  I  were  led  in  before,  I  think,  a  justice  of 
the  peace.  The  latter  was  kindly-disposed  toward  me  because  I 
was  young  and  looked  delicate. 

When  I  began  my  plea  for  clemency  I  appropriated  the  name, 
career,  and  antecedents  of  Simmons,  the  young  soldier  whose  body- 
servant  I  had  been,  back  in  San  Francisco.  The  man  on  the  bench 
was  impressed  by  my  story  of  coming  of  a  wealthy  family  .  .  my 
father  was  a  banker,  no  less. 

The  justice  waved  me  aside.  He  asked  my  buddy  to  show  his 
hands.  As  the  callouses  on  the  palms  gave  evidence  of  recent  hard 
work,  he  was  set  free  along  with  me.  We  were  the  only  two  who 
were  let  off.  The  rest  were  sent  up  for  three  months  each,  I  am 
told.  .  . 

And,  after  all  that,  what  did  my  buddy  do  but  up  and  steal  my 


130  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

blanket  roll,  with  all  in  it — including  my  Caesar  and  Shakespeare — 
and  my  extra  soldier  uniform — the  first  chance  he  got !  .  . 

An  American  who  had  married  a  Mexican  girl  gave  me  work  saw- 
ing and  chopping  wood.  I  stayed  with  him  long  enough  to  earn  a 
second-hand  suit  of  clothes  he  owned,  which  was  too  small  for  him, 
but  almost  fitted  me  .  .  civilian  clothes  .  .  my  soldier  clothes  were 
worn  to  tatters. 

•  •••••• 

I  picked  up  another  pal.  A  chunky,  beefy  nondescript.  I  was 
meditating  a  jump  across  "the  desert."  The  older  hoboes  had 
warned  me  against  it,  saying  it  was  a  cruel  trip  .  .  the  train  crews 
knew  no  compunction  against  ditching  a  fellow  anywhere  out  in 
the  desert,  where  there  would  be  nothing  but  a  tank  of  brackish 
water.  .  . 

My  new  chum,  on  the  other  hand,  swore,  that,  to  one  who  knew 
the  ropes,  it  was  not  so  hard  to  make  the  jump  on  the  Southern 
Pacific  .  .  through  Arizona  and  New  Mexico,  to  El  Paso.  He  said 
he  would  show  me  how  to  wiggle  into  the  refrigerator  box  of  an 
orange  car  .  .  on  either  end  of  the  orange  car  is  a  refrigerator 
box,  if  I  remember  correctly  .  .  access  to  which  is  gained  through 
the  criss-cross  bars  that  hold  up  a  sort  of  trap-door  at  the  top. 
It  was  in  the  cold  season,  so  there  was  now  no  ice  inside.  These 
trap-doors  are  always  officially  sealed,  when  the  car  is  loaded.  To 
break  a  seal  is  a  penitentiary  offense. 

I  stood  off  and  inspected  the  place  I  was  supposed  to  go  in  at. 
The  triangular  opening  seemed  too  small  for  a  baby  to  slide  through. 
I  looked  my  chunky  pal  up  and  down  and  laughed. 

" — think  I  can't  make  it,  eh?  .  .  well,  you  watch  .  .  there's  an 
art  in  this  kind  of  thing  just  like  there  is  in  anything." 

Inch  by  inch  he  squeezed  himself  in.  Then  he  stood  up  inside 
and  called  to  me  to  try  .  .  and  he  would  pull  me  the  rest  of  the 
way,  if  I  stuck.  He  was  plump  and  I  was  skinny.  It  ought  to  be 
easy  for  me.  Nevertheless,  it  was  the  hardest  task  I  ever  set  my- 
self .  .  I  stuck  half-way.  My  pal  pulled  my  shirt  into  rags,  helping 
me  through, — I  had  handed  my  coat  in,  previously,  or  he  would  have 
ripped  that  to  pieces,  too.  It  seemed  that  all  the  skin  went  off 
my  hips,  as  I  shot  inside  with  a  bang.  And  none  too  soon.  A 
"shack"   (brakeman)   passed  over  the  tops  of  the  cars  at  almost 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  131 

that  very  moment.  We  lay  still.  He  would  have  handed  me  a 
merciless  drubbing  if  he  had  caught  me,  with  my  nether  end  hanging 
helplessly  on  the  outside. 

We  squatted  on  the  floor  of  the  refrigerator  box.  When  we 
reached  Yuma  my  pal  rose  to  his  feet. 

"Ain't  yer  goin'  ta  throw  yer  feet  fer  a  hand-out?"  he  asked  me. 

"No,  I'm  going  to  stick  in  here  till  I  reach  El  Paso,  if  I  can." 

"What's  the  fun  bein'  a  bum,  if  you're  goin'  ter  punish  yerself 
like  that!" 

"I  want  to  find  a  country  where  there's  growing  green  things, 
as  soon  as  I  can." 

"So  long,  then." 

"So  long  .  .  don't  you  think  you'd  better  stick  till  we  reach  Tus- 
con?  Some  of  the  boys  told  me  the  'bulls'  (officers)  here  have  been 
'horstile'  (had  it  in  for  the  tramp  fraternity)  .  .  ever  since  a  yegg 
bumped  off  a  deputy,  a  while  back." 

*'Naw,  I'll  take  my  chances." 

As  I  rode  on,  alone,  I  stood  up  and  took  in  the  scenery  like  a 
tourist  .  .  there  danced  away,  and  gathered  in,  the  shimmering,  sun- 
flooded  desert  .  .  an  endless  flat  expanse  of  silver  sage  and  sentinel 
cactus.  I  saw  bleached  bones  and  a  side-cast  skull  with  whitened 
horns,  poking  up  into  the  sky  .  .  I  saw  a  sick  steer  straggling  alone, 
exactly  like  some  melodramatic  painting  of  Western  life  .  .  the 
kind  we  see  hanging  for  sale  in  second-rate  art  stores. 

I  stuck  till  Tuscon  was  reached.  There  I  was  all  in  for  lack  of 
food  and  water.   ,   . 

A  woman  gave  me  a  good  "set-down"  at  her  kitchen  table.  I 
was  as  hungry  for  something  to  read  as  I  was  for  something  to  eat. 
When  she  walked  out  of  the  kitchen,  leaving  me  alone  for  a  moment, 
I  caught  sight  of  a  compact  little  Bible  that  lay  on  the  leaf  of 
her  sewing  machine.  Two  steps,  and  I  had  it  stowed  in  my  hip 
pocket,  and  was  back  innocently  eating  .  .  the  taking  of  the  Bible 
was  providential.  I  believe  that  it  served  as  the  main  instrument, 
later  on,  in  saving  me  from  ten  years  in  the  penitentiary. 

I  was  glad  enough  to  hop  to  the  cinders  at  El  Paso.  But  El  Paso 
at  that  time  was  "unhealthy"  for  hoboes.    They  were  holding  twenty 


132  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

or  thirty  of  us  in  the  city  jail,  and  mysterious  word  had  gone  down 
the  line  in  all  directions,  that  quick  telegraph  by  word-of-mouth 
that  tramps  use  among  themselves,  to  avoid  the  town — that  it  was 
"horstile."  .  . 

Again  rolling  miles  of  arid  country.  But  this  time,  like  a  soldier 
on  a  long  march,  I  was  prepared :  I  had  begged,  from  door  to  door, 
enough  "hand-outs"  to  last  a  week  .  .  throwing  away  most  of  the 
bread  .  .  keeping  the  cold  meats  and  the  pie  and  cake.  I  sat  in  my 
open  box-car,  on  a  box  that  I  had  flung  in  with  me,  reading  my  Bible 
and  eating  my  "hand-outs"  and  a  millionaire  had  nothing  on  me 
for  enjoyment.  .  . 

I  was  half-way  to  San  Antonio  when  I  fell  in  with  as  jolly  a 
bunch  of  bums  as  I  ever  hope  to  see  in  this  world  .  .  just  outside  a 
little  town,  in  the  "jungles." 

These  tramps  were  gathered  together  on  a  definite  plan,  and  I 
^as  invited  to  join  them  in  it:  the  plan  was,  to  go,  en  masse,  from 
town  to  town,  and  systematically  exploit  it ;  one  day  one  man  would 
go  to  the  butcher  shops,  the  next,  another  man  would  take  them, 
and  the  first  would,  let's  say,  beg  at  the  baker's  .  .  and  each  day  a 
different  man  would  take  a  different  section  among  the  houses. 
Then  all  the  food  so  procured  would  be  put  together  and  shared  in 
common. 

As  usual,  there  was  among  them  an  individual  who  held  them 
together — the  originator  of  the  idea.  He  was  a  fat,  ruddy-faced 
alcoholic  ex-cook,  who  had  never  held  a  job  for  long  because  he 
loved  whiskey  so  much. 

Besides  being  the  presiding  genius  of  the  gang,  he  also  did  all 
the  cooking.  He  loved  to  cook.  Each  day  he  jumbled  all  the  mix- 
able  portions  of  the  food  together,  and,  in  a  big  tin  wash-boiler 
which  he  had  rescued  from  "the  dump"  outside  of  town,  he  stewed 
up  quite  a  palatable  mess  which  we  called  "slum"  or  "slumgullion," 
or,  more  profanely,  "son-of-a-b — ." 

For  plates  we  used  old  tomato  cans  hammered  out  flat  .  .  for 
knives  and  forks,  our  fingers,  pocket-knives,  and  chips  of  wood. 

It  was  a  happy  life. 

One  afternoon  mysteriously  our  leader  and  cook  disappeared 
— ^with  a  broad  grin  on  his  face.  Soon  he  returned,  rolling  a  whole 
barrel  of  beer  which  he  had  stolen  during  the  night  from  the  back 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  133 

of  a  saloon  .  .  and  had  hidden  it  nearby  in  the  bushes  till  it  was 
time  to  bring  it  forth.  .  . 

We  held  a  roaring  party,  and  had  several  fights.  ("Slopping  up" 
is  what  the  tramps  call  a  drinking  jamboree.)  This  was  the  first 
time  I  got  drunk  in  my  life.  It  took  very  little  to  set  me  off.  .  .  I 
burned  a  big  hole  in  my  coat.  I  woke  lying  in  the  mud  near  the 
willows  .  .  and  with  a  black  eye  .  .  a  fellow  tramp  affectionately 
showed  me  his  finger  that  I  had  bitten  severely  .  .  for  a  day  we 
had  bad  nerves,  and  lay  about  grumbling.  .  . 

We  kept  quite  clean.  The  tramp  is  as  clean  as  his  life  permits 
him  to  be  .  .  usually  .  .  the  myth  about  his  dirtiness  is  another  of 
the  myths  of  the  newspaper  and  magazine  world  .  .  though  I  have 
seen  ones  who  were  extraordinarily  filthy.   .   . 

We  "boiled  up"  regularly  .  .  and  hung  our  shirts  and  other 
articles  of  apparel  on  the  near-by  willows  to  dry.  .  . 

After  about  ten  days  of  scientific  exploitation  of  them,  the 
"natives"  of  the  town  on  the  verge  of  which  we  were  encamping, 
began  to  evidence  signs  of  restlessness. 

So  we  moved  on  to  another  town  by  means  of  a  local  freight. 

Settled  there  in  "the  jungles,"  we  hilariously  voted  to  crown  the 
cook  our  king.  We  held  the  ceremony,  presenting  him  with  a  crown 
made  out  of  an  old  tin  pan,  which  one  of  the  more  expert  among 
us  hammered  into  a  circlet  and  scoured  bright  with  sand  .  .  . 

But  soon  I  grew  tired  of  the  gang  and  started  on  alone. 

"You'd  better  beat  it  on  out  of  the  South  as  quick  as  you  can," 
an  old  tramp  had  warned  me,  "they're  hell  on  a  bum  down  here, 
and  harder  yet  on  a  Yankee  .  .  no,  they  haven't  forgot  that  yet 
— not  by  a  damn  sight !" 

I  was  soon  to  wish  that  I  had  listened  to  the  old  tramp's  wisdom. 

In  the  chill  grey  dip  of  an  early  spring  dawn  I  dropped  off  a 
freight  in  the  yards  of  the  town  of  Granton. 

I  drew  my  threadbare  coat  closer  as  I  made  my  way  up  the  track, 
on  the  look-out  for  some  place  to  go  into  and  warm  myself.  Usually, 
in  chilly  weather,  each  railroad  station  throughout  the  country  has 
a  stove  a-glow  in  the  waiting  room  .  ,  I  found  the  railroad  station, 
and  the  stove,  red-hot,  was  there  .  .  it  was  good  to  be  near  a 
fire.      In  the   South  it   can  be   at   times   heavily   cold.      There   is 


134  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

a    moisture    and    a    rawness    in    the    weather,    there,    that    hurts 

I  was  not  alone.  Two  negro  tramps  followed  me;  like  myself 
seeking  warmth  and  shelter.     Then  came  n  white  tramp. 

We  stood  around  the  stove,  which  shone  red  in  the  early  halt 
light  of  dawn.     We  shivered  and  rubbed  our  hands.     Then  we  feL 
into  tramps'  gossip  about  the  country  we  were  in. 

The  two  negroes  soon  left  to  catch  a  freight  for  Austin.     M  v 
fellow   tramp   and   I    stretched    ourselves    along    the   benches.      R 
yawned  with  a  loud  noise  like  an  animal.     "I'm  worn-out,"  he  saic' 
"I've  been  riding  the  bumpers  all  night."     I  noticed  immediate! 
that  he  did  not  speak  tramp  argot. 

"And  I  tried  to  sleep  on  the  bare  boards  of  a  box  car." 

We   had   disposed    ourselves    comfortably    to    sleep    for   the   few 
hours  till  wide  day,  in  the  station,  when  the  station  master  came 
He  poked  the  fire  brighter,  shook  it  down,  then  turned  to  us.  "Boys, 
not  unkindly,  "sorry,  but  you  can't  sleep  here  .   .   it's  the  rules.  ' 

We  shuffled  to  our  feet. 

^TDo  you  mind  if  we  stand  about  the  stove  till  the  sun's  high  enough 
to  take  the  chill  off  things?" 

"No." 

But,  standing,  we  fell  to  talking  .  .  comparing  notes.  .  . 

"I've  been  through  here  once  before,"  remarked  my  companion, 
whom  I  never  knew  otherwise  than  as  "Bud." 

"There's  a  cotton  seed  mill  up  the  tracks  a  way  toward  town,  ana 
we  can  sleep  there,  if  you  want  .  .  to-day's  Sunday,  and  no  one 
will  be  around,  working,  to  disturb  us.  In  the  South  it's  all  right 
for  a  tramp  to  sleep  among  cotton  seed,  provided  he  doesn't  smoke 
there." 

"Come  on,  then,  let's  find  a  place.  I  can  hardly  hold  my 
head  up." 

We  slumped  along  the  track.  A  cinder  cut  into  my  foot  through 
the  broken  sole  of  one  shoe.     It  made  me  wince  and  limp. 

Soon  we  came  to  the  cotton  seed  house  and  looked  it  over  frorn 
the  outside.  It  was  a  four-square  building,  each  side  having  a  door. 
All  the  doors  but  one  were  locked.  That  one,  when  pushed  againrt, 
tottered  over.  We  climbed  in  over  the  heavy  sacks,  seemingly  ful] 
of  cement,  with  which  the  unlocked  door  had  been  propped  to.  It 
also  was  unhinged. 

It  "was  dark  inside.     There  were  no  windows. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  135 

We  struck  matches  and  explored.  We  found  articles  of  heavier 
hardware  scattered  and  piled  about,  some  sacks  of  guano,  and 
about  a  dozen  wired  bales  of  ha3^ 

"I  thought  this  was  a  cotton  seed  mill,"  commented  Bud,  "because 
I  saw  so  many  niggers  working  around  it,  when  I  passed  by,  the 
other  time." 

"Well,  and  what  is  it,  then.?" 

"Evidently  a  warehouse — ^where  they  store  heavier  articles  of 
hardware." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"Twist  the  wires  off  a  couple  of  these  bales  of  hay,  use  it  for 
bedding,  and  have  a  good  sleep  anyhow." 

"But — suppose  we're  caught  in  here.''" 

"No  chance.  It's  Sunday  morning,  no  one  will  be  here  to  work 
to-day,  and  we'll  be  let  alone." 

With  a  little  effort  we  twisted  the  bales  apart  and  made  com- 
fortable beds  from  the  hay. 

It  seemed  I  had  slept  but  a  moment  when  I  was  seized  by  a  night- 
mare. I  dreamed  some  monstrous  form  was  bending  over  me,  curs- 
ing, breathing  flames  out  of  its  mouth,  and  boring  a  hot,  sharpened 
implement  into  the  centre  of  my  forehead.  I  woke,  to  find,  that, 
in  part,  my  dream  was  true. 

There  straddled  over  me  an  excited  man,  swearing  profusely  to 
keep  his  courage  up.  He  was  pressing  the  cold  muzzle-end  of  a 
"forty-four-seventy"  into  my  forehead. 

"Come  on !   Get  up,  you !     Come  on  out  of  here, 

or  I'll  blow  your brains  out,  do  you  hear.'"' 

Then  I  caught  myself  saying,  as  if  from  far  away,  perfectly  calm 
and  composed,  and  in  English  that  was  almost  academic —  "my 
dear  man,  put  up  your  gun  and  I  will  go  with  you  quietly.  I  am 
only  a  tramp  and  not  a  desperado," 

This  both  puzzled  and  at  the  same  time  reassured  my  captor 
.  .  and  made  him  swear  all  the  louder, — this  time,  with  a  note  of 
brave  certainty  in  his  tone. 

His  gun  poked  me  in  the  back  to  expedite  my  exit.     I  stepped 

V.  at  the  open  door  into  streaming  daylight  that  at  first  dazzled 
•ly  eyes.  I  saw  waiting  on  the  track  outside  a  posse  of  about  fifteen 
citizens. 


136  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Good  work,  McAndrews,"  commended  one  of  them,  deep-voiced. 
The  others  murmured  gruff  approval. 

McAndrews,  from  conversation  that  I  gathered,  was  night- 
watchman  in  the  yards.  He  had  one  red-rimmed  eye.  The  other  was 
sightless  but  had  a  half-closed  leer  that  seemed  to  express  discreet 
visual  powers. 

"Now  go  on  in  an'  fetch  out  the  other  bum,"  commanded  the  deep- 
voiced  member  of  the  posse,  speaking  with  authority. 

"There  wasn't  but  only  this  'un,"  McAndrews  replied,  with 
renewed  timidity  in  his  voice,  scarcely  concealed,  and  jerking  his 
thumb  toward  me. 

"But  the  little  nigger  said  they  was — ain't  that  so,  nigger.?" 

*'Yassir,  boss — I  done  seen  two  o'  dem  go  in  dar!"  replied  a 
wisp  of  a  negro  boy,  rolling  wide  eye-whites  in  fright,  and  wedged  in 
among  the  hulking  posse. 

"Well,  this  'un  's  all  I  seen!"  protested  the  night  watchman, 
"an'  you  betcher  I  looked  about  mighty  keerful  .  .  wot  time  did 
you  see  'um  break  in?"  turning  to  the  negro  child. 

"Jes'  at  daylight,  boss  !" 

"An'  wot  was  you-all  a-doin'  down  hee-ar.'"' 

"He  was  a-stealin'  coal  f'um  the  coalkiars,"  put  in  one  of  the 
posse,  "in  cohse!" 

All  laughed. 

"Anyhow,  I  done  seed  two  o'  dem,"  protested  the  boy,  comically, 
"wot  evah  else  I  done!" 

Everybody  was  now  hilarious. 

"Whar's  yoah  buddy?"  I  was  asked. 

"Did  unt  you-all  hev  no  buddy  wit'  you?" 

"Yes,  I  did  have  a  buddy  with  me,  but "  trying  to  give  Bud 

a  chance  of  escape, —  "but  he  caught  a  freight  West,  just  a  little 
bit  ago." 

"You're  a  liar,"  said  the  one  in  authority,  who  I  afterward  heard 
was  the  head-clerk  of  the  company  that  ran  the  warehouse.  The 
negro  boy  had  run  to  his  house  and  roused  him.  He  had  drawn 
the  posse  together.  .  . 

"You're  a  liar !    Your  buddy's  still  in  there !" 

"No,  I'll  sweah  they  haint  nobuddy  else,"  protested  McAndrews. 

But  prodded  by  their  urging,  he  climbed  in  again  over  the  sacks 
of  guano,  and  soon  brought  out  Bud,  who  had  waked,  heard  th** 


rumpus,  and  had  been  hiding,  burrowed  down  under  the  hay  a.' 
deep  as  he  could  go. 

There  was  a  burst  of  laughter  as  he  stood  framed  in  the  door- 
way, in  which  I  couldn't  help  but  join.  He  had  such  a  silly,  absurd, 
surprised  look  in  his  face  .  .  a  look  of  stupefied  incredulity,  when 
he  saw  all  the  men  drawn  up  to  receive  him.  From  a  straggled  lock 
of  hair  that  fell  over  one  eye  hung  several  long  hay-wisps.  His 
face  looked  stupid  and  moon-fat.  He  rolled  his  big,  brown  eyes 
in  a  despairful  manner  that  was  unconsciously  comic.  For  he  wa? 
instinctively,  as  I  was  not,  instantly  and  fully  aware  of  the  serious 
ness  of  what  might  come  upon  us  for  our  innocent  few  hours'  sleep. 

"Come  on,  boys.  Up  with  your  hands  till  we  go  through  your 
pockets." 

On  Bud's  hip  they  found  a  whiskey  flask,  quarter-full.  In  my 
inside  pocket,  a  sheaf  of  poor  verse — I  had  barely  as  yet  come  to 
grips  with  my  art — and,  in  an  outside  pocket,  the  Bible  I  had 
filched  from  the  woman's  sewing  machine  in  Tuscon. 

The  finding  of  the  Bible  on  my  person  created  a  speechless  pause. 

Then 

"Good  Gawd !     A  bum  with  a  Bible !" 

Awe  and  respect  held  the  crowd  for  a  moment. 


The  march  began. 

"Where  are  you  taking  us  to?" 

"To  the  calaboose." 

Down  a  long  stretch  of  peaceful,  Sunday  street  we  went — small 
boys  following  in  a  curious  horde,  and  Sunday  worshippers  with 
their  women's  gloved  hands  tucked  in  timidly  under  their  arms  as 
we  passed  by.  They  gave  us  prim,  askance  glances,  as  if  we  belonged 
to  a  different  species  of  the  animal  kingdom. 

Buck  negroes  with  their  women  stepped  out  into  the  street,  while, 
as  is  customary  there, — the  white  men  passed,  taking  us  two  tramps 
to  jail.  We  came  to  a  high,  newly  white-washed  board  fence.  Within 
it  stood  a  two-story  building  of  red  brick.  On  the  fence  was  painted, 
in  big  black  letters  the  facetious  warning,  "Keep  out  if  you  can." 
A  passage  in  through  the  gate,  and  McAndrews  first  knocked  at, 
then  kicked  against  the  door. 

The  sleepy-faced,  small-eyed  jailer  finally  opened  to  us.     The 


VaS  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

wrinkled  skin  of  the  old  man  hung  loosely  from  his  neck.  It 
wabbled  as  he  talked. 

"What  the  hell's  the  mattah  with  you  folks?"  protested 
McAndrews,  the  night  watchman,  "slep'  late,"  yawned  the  jailer, 
"it  bein'  Sunday  mawhnin'." 

By  this  time  the  sheriff,  summoned  from  his  house,  had  joined 
us.  A  big  swashbuckler  of  a  man  with  a  hard  face,  hard  blue  eyes 
with  quizzical  wrinkles  around  them.  They  seemed  wrinkles  of  good 
humour  till  you  looked  closer. 

" — s  a  damn  lie  .  .  you  'en  Jimmy  hev  bin  a-gamblin'  all  night," 
interjected  the  sheriff,  in  angry  disgust. 

They  marched  us  upstairs.  The  whole  top  floor  was  given  over 
to  a  huge  iron  cage  which  had  been  built  in  before  the  putting  on 
of  the  roof.  A  narrow  free  space — a  sort  of  corridor,  ran  all 
around  it,  on  the  outside. 

Eager  and  interested,  the  prisoners  already  in  the  cage  pushed 
their  faces  against  the  bars  to  look  at  us.  But  at  the  sheriff's 
word  of  command  they  went  into  their  cells,  the  latter  built  in  a 
row  within  the  cage  itself,  and  obediently  slammed  their  doors  shut 
while  a  long  iron  bar  was  shot  across  the  whole  length,  from  with- 
out .  .  then  the  big  door  of  the  cage  was  opened,  and  we  were 
thrust  in.  The  bar  was  drawn  back,  liberating  the  others,  then, 
from  their  cells. 

The  posse  left.  Our  fellow  prisoners  crowded  about  us,  asking 
us  questions  .  .  what  had  we  done?  .  .  and  how  had  we  been 
caught?  .  .  and  what  part  of  the  country  were  we  from?  .  .  etc. 
etc.  .  . 

From  the  North  .  .  yes,  Yankee  .  .  well,  when  a  fellow  was  both 
a  Yank  and  a  tramp  he  was  given  a  short  shrift  in  the  South. 

They  talked  much  about  themselves   .   .   one  thing,  however,  we 
all  held  in  common  .   .  our  innocence  .   .  we  were  all  innocent  .  . 
every  one  of  us  was  innocent  of  the  crime  charged  against  us  .  , 
we  were  just  being  persecuted. 

•  •••••• 

That  afternoon  a  negro  preacher,  short  and  squat,  who,  innocent, 
was  yet  being  held  for  Grand  Jury,  delivered  us  a  fearful  half- 
chanted  sermon  on  the  Judgment  Day.  I  never  heard  so  moving, 
compelling  a  sermon.    I  saw  the  sky  glowing  like  a  furnace,  the  star- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  139 

touching  conflagration  of  the  End  of  Things  rippling  up  the  east 
in  increasing  waves  of  fire,  in  place  of  the  usual  dawn  .  .  I  heard 
the  crying  of  mankind  .  .  of  sinners  .  .  for  mountains  to  topple 
over  on  them  and  cover  them  from  the  wrath  of  the  Lord.  .  . 

"In  co'hse  I  nevah  done  it,"  explained  the  preacher,  "I  had 
some  hawgs  of  mah  own.  Mah  hawgs  had  an  under-bit  an'  an  ovah- 
bit  in  dere  eahs,  an'  de  ones  I's  'cused  o'  stealin',  dey  had  only  an 
ovah-bit.    But  heah  dey's  got  me,  holdin'  me  foh  de  pen." 

•  •••••• 

The  little  grey-faced  pickpocket — caught  at  his  trade  at  the 
Dallas  Fair,  told  me  how  easy  it  was  to  add  an  under-bit  to  an  over- 
bit  to  the  ears  of  the  two  hogs  stolen,  "Sure  that  sneakin'  niggah 
pahson  did  it,"  he  averred — but  all  the  while  he  likewise  averred  that 
he  hadn't  picked  the  pocket  of  the  man  from  whom  he  was  accused 
of  stealing  a  wallet.   .   . 

"Yes,  I'll  admit  Ah've  done  sech  things.  But  this  taime  they  was 
sure  wrong.  Ef  I  git  framed  up,"  he  added,  "I  mean  tuh  study 
law  .  .  pull  foh  a  job  in  th'  prison  libery  an'  read  up  .  .  an'  take 
up  practice  when  I  serve  my  term." 

Beside  the  hog-stealing  parson  and  the  little  grey-faced  pick- 
pocket there  were  also : 

A  big  negro  youth,  black  as  shiny  coal,  who  was  being  held  over 
on  appeal.  He'd  been  sentenced  to  ninety-nine  years  for  rape  of 
a  negro  girl  .  .  if  it  had  been  a  white  girl  he  would  have  been 
burned  long  ago,  he  said  .  .  as  it  was,  the  sheriff's  son,  who  was 
handling  his  case,  would  finally  procure  his  release — and  exact,  in 
return,  about  ten  years'  of  serfdom  as  payment.  And  there  was 
a  young,  hard-drinking  quarrelsome  tenant-farmer,  who  was  charged 
with  having  sold  two  bales  of  cotton  not  belonging  to  him,  to  get 
money  for  drinking.  .  . 

There  was  another  negro,  hanging-handed,  simous-faced,  who  had, 
in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  blown  two  heads  off  by  letting  loose  both  barrels 
at  once  of  his  heavily  charged  shotgun  .  .  the  heads  were  his  wife's 
.  .  and  her  lover's.  He  caught  them  when  their  faces  were  close 
together  .  .  and  they  were  kissing.  But  he  seemed  a  gentle  creature, 
tractable  and  harmless. 

On  the  outside  of  the  cage  in  which  we  were  cooped  like  menagerie 
animals,  a  negro  girl  had  her  cot.     She  slept  and  lived  out  there 


140  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

by  the  big  stove  which  heated  the  place.  She  was  a  girl  of  palish 
yellow  colour.  She  was  a  trusty.  She  had  been  caught  watching 
outside  of  a  house  while  two  grown-up  negro  women  went  within 
to  rob. 


Monday  morning  "kangaroo  court"  was  called  .  .  that  court 
which  prisoners  hold,  mimicking  the  legal  procedure  to  which  they 
grow  so  accustomed  during  their  lives.  We  were  arraigned  for  trial 
— the  charge  against  us,  that  of  "Breaking  Into  Jail." 

The  cotton  thief  served  as  prosecuting  attorney.  The  negro 
youth  in  for  rape  of  one  of  his  own  colour, — the  sergeant-at-arms ; 
while  the  negro  preacher  in  for  hog-stealing  defended  us  .  .  and 
he  did  it  so  well  that  we  were  let  off  with  ten  blows  of  the  strap 
a-piece.  We  had  no  money  to  be  mulcted  of,  nor  were  we  able 
to  procure  from  friends,  as  the  custom  is,  funds  for  the  buying  of 
whiskey  and  tobacco. 

•  •••••• 

In  a  few  days  Bud  and  I  had  settled  down  into  the  routine  of  jail- 
life.  Every  morning  we  swept  our  cells,  and  all  the  prisoners  took 
turns  sweeping  the  corridor.  The  fine  for  spitting  on  the  floor  was 
ten  lashes  laid  on  hard.  And  each  day  before  breakfast  we  soaked 
the  seams  of  our  clothes  in  vile-smelling  creosote  to  kill  off  the  lice 
and  nits.  We  had  no  chance  to  bathe,  and  were  given  but  little 
water  to  wash  our  face  and  hands. 

•  •••••■ 

*'I  wonder  what  they  are  going  to  do  with  us?" 

"Anything  they  please,"  answered  Bud  gloomily. 

"From  thirty  to  ninety  days  on  the  county  farm,  I  suppose?" 

"We'll  be  lucky  if  we  don't  get  from  four  to  ten  years  in  the  pen." 

"What  for?" 

"Burglary — didn't  we  break  into  that  warehouse?" 

Our  meals  were  passed  in  to  us  through  an  open  space  near  the  j 
level  of  the  floor,  at  the  upper  end  of  the  cage,  where  a  bar  had  ! 
been  removed  for  that  purpose.  We'd  line  up  and  the  tin  plates  j 
would  be  handed  in,  one  after  the  other  .  .  two  meals  a  day.  For  i 
breakfast  a  corn  pone  of  coarse,  white  corn  meal,  and  a  bit  of  fried  j; 
sow-belly.     For  dinner,  all  the  water  we  could  drink.    For  supper,  | 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  141 

breakfast  all  over  again,  with  the  addition  of  a  dab  of  greens.  On 
rare  occasions  the  sheriff's  son  or  the  jailer  went  hunting  .  .  and 
then  we'd  have  rabbit.  The  sheriff  had  the  contract,  at  so  much 
per  head,  for  feeding  the  prisoners. 

Each  morning  I  used  to  ask  the  jailer  for  the  occasional  news- 
paper with  which  he  covered  the  basket  in  which  he  brought  our 
food  to  us.     One  morning  my  eyes  fell  upon  an  interesting  item: 

The  story  of  how  two  young  desperadoes  had  been  caught  in  the 
warehouse  beside  the  railroad  track,  in  the  act  of  committing 
burglary  .  .  the  tale  of  our  capture  was  briefly  told  .  .  the  bravery 
of  the  night  watchman  and  the  posse  extolled  .  .  and  the  further 
information  was  conveyed,  that,  having  waved  preliminary  examina- 
tion (and  we  had,  for  they  told  us  the  justice  was  continually  too 
drunk  to  examine  us)  we  were  being  held  over  for  Grand  Jury  .  . 
on  a  charge  of  burglary. 

Though  he  had  predicted  this,  the  actuality  of  it  struck  Bud  all 
of  a  heap.  He  paced  up  and  down  the  cage  for  the  full  space  of 
an  hour,  hanging  his  ungainly  head  between  his  shoulders  in  aban- 
donment to  despair. 

My  reaction  was  a  strange  one.  I  wanted  to  sing  .  .  whistle  .  . 
dance  .  .  I  was  in  the  midst  of  adventure  and  romance.  I  was  a 
Count  of  Monte  Cristo,  a  Baron  von  Trenck.  I  dreamed  of  lin- 
guistic and  philosophic  studies  in  the  solitude  of  my  cell  at  the  peni- 
tentiary till  I  was  master  of  all  languages,  of  all  wisdom,  or  I 
dreamed  of  escape  and  of  rising  to  wealth  and  power,  afterwards, 
so  that  I  would  be  pardoned  and  could  come  back  and  magnani- 
mously shame  with  my  forgiveness  the  community  that  had  sent 
me  up. 

Bud  stopped  his  pacing  to  and  fro  to  stand  in  our  cell-doorway. 
I  was  sitting  on  a  stool,  thinking  hard. 

^'We  can't  do  a  thing,"  said  Bud,  "we're  in  for  it,  good  and 
proper." 

" — tell  you  what  Fll  do,"  I  responded,  "I'll  write  a  letter  to  the 
owner  of  the  warehouse  and  appeal  to  his  humanity." 

"You  romantic  jack-ass,"  yelled  Bud,  his  nerves  on  edge.  He 
walked  away  angry.     He  came  back  calmer. 

"Look  here,  Gregory,  I  want  you  to  excuse  that  outburst — ^but 
you  are  a  fool.  This  is  real  life  we're  up  against  now.  You're  not 
reading  about  this  in  a  book." 


142  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"We'll  see  what  can  be  done,"  I  returned. 

At  the  extreme  end  of  the  big  cage,  the  end  furthest  from  the 
entrance  door,  stood  two  cells  not  occupied.  The  last  of  these 
I  had  chosen  for  my  study,  a  la  Monte  Cristo.  The  sheriff's  son 
had  lent  me  a  dozen  of  Opie  Reid's  novels,  a  history  of  the  Civil 
War  from  the  Southern  viewpoint,  an  arithmetic,  and  an  algebra. 
Here  all  day  long  I  studied  and  wrote  assiduously.  And  it  was  here 
I  went  to  sit  on  my  stool  and  write  the  letter  to  the  owner  of  the 
warehouse  .  .  a  certain  Mr.  Womber.  .  . 

In  it  I  pointed  out  the  enormity  of  sending  to  the  penitentiary 
two  young  men,  on  a  merely  technical  charge  of  burglary.  For  if 
we  had  gone  into  the  place  to  rob,  why  had  we  so  foolishly,  then, 
gone  to  sleep?  And  what,  at  the  final  analysis,  could  we  have 
stolen  but  bales  of  hay,  sacks  of  guano,  and  plowshares?  All  of 
them  too  unwieldy  to  carry  away  unless  we  had  other  conveyance 
than  our  backs.     It  was  absurd,  on  the  face  of  it. 

Furthermore,  I  appealed  to  him,  as  a  Christian,  to  let  us  go  free 
.  .  in  the  name  of  God,  not  to  wreck  our  lives  by  throwing  us,  for 
a  term  of  years,  into  contact  with  criminals  of  the  hardened  type — 
to  give  us  one  more  chance  to  become  useful  citizens  of  our  great 
and  glorious  country. 

Bud  laughed  sneeringly  when  I  read  the  letter  aloud  to  him  .  . 
said  it  was  a  fine  effort  as  a  composition  in  rhetoric,  but  I  might 
expect  nothing  of  it — if  the  perpetually  drunk  jailer  really  brought 
it  to  its  destination — except  that  it  would  be  tossed  unread  into  the 
wastebasket.  .  . 

I  pleaded  with  the  jailer  to  deliver  it  for  me  .  .  told  him  how 
important  it  would  be  to  our  lives  .  .  adjured  him  to  consider  our 
helpless  and  penniless  state.     He  promised  to  deliver  it  for  me. 

"I  have  nothing  to  give  you,  now,"  I  ended,  "but,  if  I  ever  get 
free,  I'll  send  you  twenty-five  dollars  or  so  from  up  home,  when  I 
reach  the  North." 

•  •••••• 

A  prisoner's  first  dream  is  "escape."  Voices  outside  on  the 
street,  the  sight  of  the  tops  of  green  trees  through  bars,  dogs  bark- 
ing far  away,  the  travels  of  the  sun  as  shown  by  moving  bands 
of  light  on  the  walls  and  in  the  cells — all  remind  him  of  the  day 
when  he  was,   as  he   now   sees  it,  happy   and  free  .  .  he  forgets 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  143 

entirely,  in  the  midst  of  the  jail's  black  restraints,  the  lesser  evils 
of  outside,  daily  life.  Even  the  termagant  wife  is  turned  into  a 
domestic  angel. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

Under  the  smoky  prison  lamp  made  of  a  whiskey  bottle  filled  with 
oil,  and  a  shred  of  shirt  drawn  through  a  cork,  we  planned  to 
cut  out. 

"The  way  to  do  it  is  easy,"  said  the  little  pickpocket,  "in  the  sole 
of  every  good  shoe  is  a  steel  spring.  I'll  take  the  steel  from  my 
shoe.  There's  already  one  bar  removed  from  the  chuck-hole  (No 
use  trying  to  reproduce  the  dialect).  If  we  saw  out  another  bar, 
that  will  give  us  enough  room  for  going  through.  Then  it  will  be 
easy  to  dig  out  the  mortar  between  the  bricks,  in  the  jail  wall.  Once 
out,  we  can  make  for  the  river  bottoms,  and,  by  wading  in  the  water, 
even  their  bloodhounds  can't  track  us." 

"And  once  I  get  over  into  Indian  Territory  or  Arkansas,  you'll 
never  see  me  in  Texas  again,"  I  muttered. 

*'How'll  we  conceal  where  we've  been  sawing?"  Bud  asked. 

"By  plugging  up  the  grooves  with  corn  bread  blackened  with  soot 
that  we  can  make  by  holding  the  wick  of  this  smoky  lamp  against 
the  cage-ceiling." 

"And  how'U  we  keep  folks  from  hearing  the  sawing?" 

"By  dancing  and  singing  while  Baykins  here"  (alluding  to  a  "pore 
white"  fiddler  who  had  almost  killed  a  man  at  a  dance)  "while 
Baykins  here  plays  *whip  the  devil.'  " 

The  very  next  day  we  began  dancing  and  singing  and  taking 
turns  at  the  chuckhole  bar. 

"Whip  the  Devil"  is  an  interminable  tune  like  the  one  about  the 
"old  woman  chasing  her  son  round  the  room  with  a  broom."  .   . 

The  mistake  was,  that  in  our  eagerness  we  "whipped  the  devil" 
too  long  at  a  time.  Naturally,  the  jailer  grew  suspicious  of  such 
sudden  and  prolonged  hilarity.  But  even  at  that  it  took  almost  a 
week  for  them  to  catch  on.  We  knew  it  was  all  up  when,  one 
morning  at  breakfast,  the  sheriff  came  in  with  the  jailer. 

*'Boys,  all  back  into  your  cells !"  he  growled. 

The  long  bar  was  thrown  over  our  closed  doors. 

The  sheriff  stooped  down  and  inspected  the  chuck-hole. 

"Why,  Jesus  Christ,  they'd  of  been  through  in  two  more  nights. 
It's  good  we  caught  them  in  time  or  they'd  of  been  a  hell  of  a  big 


144  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

jail-delivery  .  .  do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  turning  to  the  jailer,  "you 
never  noticed  this  before?"  and  with  one  finger  he  rated  out  the 
blackened  corn  bread. 

"You  see,  I'm  a  little  near-sighted,  Mistah  Jenkins." 

*'Too  damned  near-sighted,  an'  too  damned  stupid,  too." 

The  big  iron  door  of  the  cage  was  locked  again,  the  long  bar 
thrown  off  our  cell  doors. 

"Now,  you  sons  of  b can  come  out  into  the  cage  again;  but, 

mind  you,  if  any  of  you  try  such  a  thing  again,  I'll  take  you  out 
one  by  one  and  give  you  all  a  rawhiding." 

We  received  the  abuse  in  sullen  silence.  For  three  days  our 
rations  lacked  cornpone,  for  punishment. 

We  decided  among  ourselves  that  the  negro  preacher,  to  stand 
in  well  with  the  authorities,  had  given  us  away.   .   . 

And  if  he  had  not,  panic-stricken,  pleaded  with  the  sheriff  to  be 
taken  out  and  put  in  a  separate  cell,  I  believe  we  would  have  killed 
him. 

•  •••••• 

There  was  one  more  way.  It  was  so  simple  a  way  that  we  had 
not  thought  of  it  before.  The  mulatto  girl,  who  slept  by  the  big 
stove,  on  a  cot,  just  outside  the  cage  .  .  a  trusty  and  the  jailer's 
unwilling  concubine  .  .  this  slim,  yellow  creature  was  much  in  love 
with  the  lusty  young  farmer  who  had  stolen  the  bales  of  cotton 
and  sold  them  for  a  drunk.  And  it  was  he  who  suggested  that, 
through  her,  we  get  possession  of  the  keys.  For,  every  day,  she 
informed  us,  she  passed  them  by  where  they  hung  on  a  nail,  down- 
stairs, as  she  swept  and  cleaned  house  for  the  jailer. 

It  was  not  a  difficult  matter  to  procure  them.  She  would  bring 
them  up  to  us  and  hand  them  in  through  the  chuck-hole,  which  the 
village  blacksmith  had  repaired  and  once  more  reinforced  with 
extra  bars,  "so  them  bastards  won't  even  think  of  sawing  out  again," 
as  the  jailer  had  expressed  it. 

The  evening  she  handed  the  keys  in  to  us  we  were  so  excited  we 
wanted  to  have  "Whip  the  Devil"  played  again  for  our  singing  and 
dancing.  But  this  might  have  once  more  awakened  suspicion.  Before, 
we  had  raised  such  a  row  as  to  have  caused  pedestrians  to  stop  and 
listen  in  groups,  wondering  what  made  the  men  inside  so  happy.  .  . 

There  were  three  separate  locks  on  the  great  cage  door.  One, 
two  of  them  went  back  with  an  easy  click.    For  the  third  we  could 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  145 

find  no  key.  There  was  nothing  else  to  do  now  but  to  have  recourse 
to  singing  and  dancing  again.  Baykins  started  sawing  his  fiddle 
furiously  while  the  big  negro  in  for  rape  hammered  and  hammered 
on  the  lock  to  break  it,  with  one  prison  stool  after  another,  till 
all  were  tossed  aside,  broken  as  kindling  wood  is  broken.  It  was 
good  that  the  jailer  was  either  deaf,  or,  like  the  heathen  gods  in 
the  Old  Testament,  away  on  a  journey.  Finally,  we  gave  up  in 
despair.  The  big  negro  collapsed  with  a  wail.  The  first  sign  of 
Weakness  I  ever  detected  in  him. 

"Now  it's  shore  either  ninety-nine  yeahs  in  de  pen  foh  me,  or  ten 
yeahs  for  th'  sheriff's  son  foh  lawyah  fees  .  .  an'  the  footprints  in 
de  flowah  bed  .  .  of  the  man  what  done  de  rape  was  two  sizes  biggah 
dan  mine.'* 

The  next  day  the  jailer,  of  course,  missed  the  keys.  Panic- 
stricken,  the  mulatto  girl  was  afraid  to  slip  them  back  to  their 
accustomed  nail,  for  fear  she'd  be  seen  at  it;  or  was  it  out  of 
vindictiveness  against  the  jailer  that  she  had  now  actually  hidden 
them  somewhere  (for,  finding  them  of  no  use,  we  had  handed  them 
back  to  her) ! 

That  same  afternoon  the  sheriff,  with  his  son  and  the  little, 
shrivelled,  stuttering,  half-deaf  jailer,  came  in  at  the  door  of  the  big 
room.  It  was  easy  to  see  what  they  wanted.  They  wanted  the  keys 
and  they  were  going  to  make  the  girl  confess  where  they  were  .  .  as 
she  was  the  only  other  person,  beside  the  prison  authorities,  that 
Was  in  the  way  to  come  at  them. 

"Martha,  we  want  them  keys !  Show  us  where  they  is,  like  a  good 
girl !" 

"  'Deed,  Ah  don'  know  where  dey  is  a-tall,  Marse  Sheriff!" 

"Come  on,  gal,  you  was  the  only  one  downstairs  exceptin'  Jacklin 
heah!"  pointing  to  the  jailer. 

The  jailer  nodded  his  head  asseveratingly. 

"Yes,  Martha,  tell  us  whar  the  keys  air,"  urged  the  latter,  with 
caressing  softness  and  fright  in  his  voice.  He  didn't  want  his 
mistress  whipped. 

"If  you  don't,  by  God,  I'll  whup  the  nigger  hide  clean  off  yore 
back,"  and  the  sheriff  reached  for  the  braided  whip  which  his  son 
Jimmy  handed  him. 

"I  sweah  Ah  don'  know  where  dey  is!" 


146  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"You  dirty  liah,"  taking  out  a  watch;  "I'll  give  you  jest  five 
minutes  t'  tell,  an'  then "  he  menaced  with  the  up-lifted  whip. 

In  stubborn  silence  the  girl  waited  the  five  minutes  out. 

"Jimmy!  .  .  Jacklin!  .  .  throw  her  down  an'  hold  her,  rump  up, 
over  that  cot."  They  obeyed.  With  a  jerk  the  sheriff  had  her 
dress  up  and  her  bare  buttocks  in  view. 

"I'm  a-goin'  to  whup  an'  whup  till  you  confess,  Martha." 

Crack !  Crack !  Crack !  the  whip  descended,  leaving  red  whelts 
each  time.  The  mulatto  girl  writhed,  but  did  not  cry  quits.  Beads 
of  perspiration  glistened  on  the  jailer's  face.  The  girl  shook  off 
his  lax  grip  on  her  arms  .  .  the  sheriff's  son  was  holding  her  legs. 
We  were  crowded  against  the  bars,  angry  and  silent.  We  admired 
the  girl's  hopeless  pluck.  We  saw  she  was  holding  out  just  to, 
somehow,  have  vengeance  on  the  jailer  for  her  being  held  in  unwilling 
concubinage  by  him,  hoping  he  would  catch  it  hard  for  having  let  the 
keys  hang  carelessly  in  open  view,  and  so,  stolen. 

"Damn  you,  Jacklin,"  shouted  the  sheriff,  "I  believe  you're  a 
little  soft  on  the  gal  .  .  come  here  .  .  you  swing  the  whip  an'  I'll 
hold  her  arms." 

In  mute  agony  Jacklin  obeyed  .  .  whipping  the  woman  of  whom 
he  was  fond. 

"Harder,  Jacklin,  harder,"  and  the  sheriff  drew  his  gun  on  him 
to  emphasise  the  command. 

Under  such  impulsion,  a  shower  of  heavy  blows  fell.  The  girl 
screamed. 

"I'll  give  up.  .  .  Oh,  good  Lordy,  I'll  give  up." 

And  she  dug  the  keys  out  from  under  the  mattress  across  which 
they  had  whipped  her. 

After  they  had  gone  she  lay  crying  on  her  face  for  a  long  while. 
When  night  came  she  still  lay  crying.  Nothing  any  of  us  could 
say  would  console  her.  Not  even  the  little  white  cotton  thief  had 
power  to  allay  her  hurt.  .  . 

At  last  we  began  cursing  and  railing  at  her.  That  made  her 
stop,  after  a  fashion.  But  still  she  occasionally  gave  vent  to  a 
heart-deep,  dry,  racking  sob. 

Locked  in  there  behind  bars  and  forced  to  be  impotent  onlookers, 
the  whipping  we  had  witnessed  made  us  as  restless  as  wild  animals. 
That  night,  under  the  dim  flare  of  our  jail-made  lamps,  the  boys 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  147 

gambled  as  usual,  for  their  strips  of  paper, — and  as  eagerly  as  if 
it  were  real  currency.  I,  for  my  part,  drew  away  to  the  vacant 
cell  at  the  far  end  of  the  cage  to  study  and  read  and  dream  my 
dreams.  .  . 

As  I  sat  there  I  was  soon  possessed  with  a  disagreeable  feeling 
that  a  malignant,  ill-wishing  presence  hovered  near.  I  shifted  in 
my  seat  uneasily.  I  looked  up.  There  stood,  in  the  doorway,  the 
lusty  young  farmer  who  was  in  for  stealing  the  bales  of  cotton. 
He  wore  an  evil,  combative  leer  on  his  face.  He  was  "spoiling" 
for  a  quarrel — ^just  for  the  mere  sake  of  quarrelling — that  I  could 
see.     But  I  dissembled. 

"Well,  Jack?"  I  asked  gently. 

"You're  a  nice  one,"  he  muttered,  "you  pale-faced  Yankee  son  of 

a  b .  .  think  you're  better  'n  the  rest  of  us,  don't  ye?  .  .  readin' 

in  yore  books?" 

"Nonsense,  what  are  you  picking  at  me  for?  I'm  not  harming 
anybody,  am  I?" 

*'No,  but  you're  a  God  damned  fool !" 

"Look  here,  what  have  I  ever  done  to  you?" 

*'Nothin',  only  you're  a  white-livered  stinker,  an'  I'm  jest  a-spoilin' 
foh  a  fight  with  you-all." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  fight  with  you." 

"I'll  make  you,"  he  replied,  striding  in;  and  fetching  me  a  cuff 
on  the  ear  .  .  then,  in  a  far-away  voice  that  did  not  seem  myself,  I 
heard  myself  pleading  to  be  let  alone  .  .  by  this  time  all  the  other 
boys  had  crowded  down  about  the  cell  to  see  the  fun. 

I  was  humiliated,  ashamed  .  .  but,  try  as  I  would,  the  thought  and 
vision  of  my  uncle  came  on  me  like  a  palsy. 

Bud  stepped  up.  He  had  always  been  so  meek  and  placid  before 
that  what  he  did  then  was  a  surprise  to  me. 

"/'ZZ  fight!" 

"What!  you?"  glowered  the  young  farmer,  surprised. 

"Yes,  I'll  give  you  all  the  fighting  you  want,  you  dirty  cotton 
thief !" 

Instantly  the  farmer  made  at  him.  Bud  ran  in,  fetched  him  two 
blows  in  the  face,  and  clinched. 

It  was  not  going  very  well  for  the  desperado.  From  somewhere 
on  his  person  he  whipped  forth  a  knife,  and,  with  a  series  of  flashes 
through  the  air,  began  stabbing  Bud  again  and  again  in  the  back. 


148  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  thank  God  for  what  came  over  me  then.  Too  glad  of  soul  to 
believe  it,  I  experienced  a  warm  surge  of  angry  courage  rushing 
through  me  like  an  electric  storm.  All  the  others  were  panic- 
stricken  for  the  moment.  But  I  burst  through  the  group,  rushed 
back  to  the  toilet,  and,  with  frenzied  strength,  tore  loose  a  length 
of  pipe  from  the  exposed  plumbing.  I  came  rushing  back.  I 
brought  down  the  soft  lead-pipe  across  "Jack's"  ear,  accompanying 
the  blow  with  a  volley  of  oaths  in  a  roaring  voice. 

The  farmer  whipped  about  to  face  his  new  antagonist,  letting 
Bud  drop  back.  Bud  sank  to  the  iron  floor.  The  farmer  was 
astonished  almost  to  powerlessness  to  find  facing  him,  with  a  length 
of  swinging  pipe  in  his  hand,  the  boy  who  had  a  few  minutes  before 
been  a,fraid. 

But  he  rapidly  recovered  and  came  on  at  me,  gibbering  like  an 
incensed  baboon. 

By  this  time  all  the  humiliations  I  had  suffered  in  the  past,  since 
succumbing  to  the  fear-complex  that  my  uncle  had  beaten  into 
me — all  the  outrage  of  them  was  boiling  in  me  for  vengeance.  I 
saw  the  blood  bathing  the  torn  ear  of  my  antagonist.  It  looked 
beautiful.  I  was  no  longer  afraid  of  anything.  Yelling  my  uncle's 
name  I  came  on.  .  .  I  beat  the  knife  out  of  the  other's  hand  and 
bloodied  his  knuckles  with  the  next  blow.  I  beat  him  down  with 
rapid  blows,  threshing  at  him,  shouting  and  yelling  exultantly. 

The  other  men  thought  me  gone  crazy.  I  had,  for  the  time,  gone 
crazy.    The  fellow  lay  at  my  feet,  inert.     I  stopped  for  the  moment. 

In  that  moment  the  gang  began  to  close  in  on  me,  half  frightened 
themselves.     I  threatened  them  back. 

"By  hell,  I've  had  enough  of  bullying,"  I  shouted  wildly;  "I'm 
not  afraid  of  anything  or  anybody  any  more  .  .  if  there's  anyone 
else  here  that  wants  a  taste  of  this  pipe,  let  them  step  up," 

"We  ain't  a-trjan'  to  fight  you-all,"  called  out  the  big  negro 
who  was  in  for  rape,  "we  jest  don'  want  you  to  kill  him  an'  git  hung 
foh  murduh." 

At  the  word  "murder"  I  stepped  quickly  back. 

"Well,  don't  let  him  come  bothering  me  or  my  pal  for  a  fight 
any  more  when  we've  done  nothing  to  him." 

"Don'  worry,  he  won't  no  moh !"  assured  the  fiddler.  .  . 

I  threw  down  the  lead  pipe.  It  had  seemed  to  me  that  all  the 
while  it  was  my  Uncle  Landon  who  had  received  the  blows. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  149 

The  rough-neck  farmer  was  in  bad  shape ;  he  was  bloodied  all  over 
like  a  stuck  pig.  The  mulatto  girl  on  the  outside  had  for  the 
last  five  minutes  been  occupied  in  calling  out  of  the  window  for 
help.     She  managed  to  attract  the  attention  of  a  passerby-by. 

"What's  the  matter?"  was  called  up  to  her.  .  . 

"The  jailer  ain't  downstairs  .  .  an'  de  boys  is  killin'  each  other 
up  heah!" 

By  the  time  the  angry-faced  sheriff  came  with  his  son,  the 
jailer,  and  a  couple  of  doctors,  we  had  quieted  down. 

Bud  and  the  farmer  were  taken  out;  by  the  side  of  each  a  pail 
of  water  was  placed  .  .  they  were  seated  on  stools,  stripped  to  the 
waist.  The  surgeons  dressed  their  wounds  as  if  on  a  battlefield. 
"Jack"  needed  ten  stitches  in  his  scalp.  .  .  Bud  had  four  knife  wounds 
that  demanded  sewing  up.  Both  the  boys  went  pale  like  ghosts 
and  spewed  their  bellies  empty  from  weakness  and  loss  of  blood.   .   . 

"Mind  you,  you  chaps  in  there  have  raised  'bout  enough  hell  .  . 
ef  I  hear  o'  any  more  trouble,  I'll  take  you  all  out  one  by  one  an' 
treat  each  one  o'  you-all  to  a  good  cowhidin',  law  or  no  law !" 

I  was  let  alone  after  that.  My  cowardice  had  gone  forever.  I 
was  now  a  man  among  men.  I  was  happy.  I  saw  what  an  easy 
thing  it  is  to  fight,  to  defend  yourself.  I  saw  what  an  exhilaration, 
a  pleasure,  the  exchanging  of  righteous  blows  can  be. 

Always  my  dream  was  of  being  a  big  man  when  I  got  out — some 
day.  Always  I  acted  as  if  living  a  famous  prison  romance  like  that 
of  Baron  Von  Trenck's. 

I  collected  from  the  living  voices  of  my  fellow  prisoners  innumer- 
able jail  and  cocaine  songs,  and  rhymes  of  the  criminal  world.  I 
wrote  them  down  on  pieces  of  wrapping  paper  that  the  jailer 
occasionally  covered  the  food-basket  with  in  lieu  of  newspaper. 

"Oh,  coco-Marie,  and  coco-Maral, 

I'se  gon'  ta  whiff  cocaine  'twill  I  die. 

Ho!  (sniff)  Ho!  (sniff)  baby,  take  a  whiff  of  me!" 
(The  sniffing  sound  indicating  the  snuffing  up  into  the  nostril  of 
the  "snow,"  or  "happy  dust,"  as  it  is  called  in  the  underworld.) 


150  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Then  there  was  the  song  about  lice: 

"There's  a  lice  in  jail 
As  big  as  a  rail; 
When  you  lie  down 
They'll  tickle  your  tail — 
Hard  times  in  jail,  poor  boy!  .  .  " 

And  another,  more  general: 

"Along  come  the  jailer 
About   'leven  o'clock, 
Bunch  o'  keys  in  his  right  hand. 
The  jailhouse  do'h  was  locked  .  . 
'Cheer  up,  you  pris'ners,' 
I  heard  that  jailer  say, 
*You  got  to  go  to  the  cane-brakes 
Foh  ninety  yeahs  to  stay !'  " 

As  you  can  guess,  most  of  these  jail  songs  and  ballads  of  the 
underworld  could  only  be  printed  in  asterisks.  I  was  hoping,  in 
the  interests  of  folklore,  to  preserve  them  for  some  learned  society's 
private  printing  press. 

A  fresher  green  came  to  the  stray  branches  of  the  trees  that 
crossed  our  barred  windows.  The  world  outside  seemed  to  waken 
with  bird-song.  It  was  spring,  and  time  for  the  sitting  of  the 
grand  jury  that  was  to  decide  whether  we  were,  each  of  us,  to  be 
held  over  for  trial  by  petty  jury  .  .  days  of  fretful  eagerness  and 
discontent  .  .  from  the  windows  the  yellow  trusty-girl  said  she 
could  see  lines  of  buggies  driving  in  to  town.  It  was  the  custom 
of  farmers  for  miles  around  to  drive  in  to  their  county  seat  during 
the  court  assizes  .  .  a  week  or  so  of  holidays  like  a  continuous 
circus  for  them. 

When  the  sheriff  would  have  occasion  to  come  into  the  room  in 
which  stood  our  big  cage,  the  boys  would  crowd  up  to  the  bars, 
each  one  hoping  for  news  favourable  to  his  case  .  .  the  prevailing 
atmosphere  was  one  of  hope. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  151 

The  negro  who  had  murdered  his  wife  and  her  sweetheart  with  a 
shotgun  had  already  had  his  trial.  He  was — and  had  been — ^but 
waiting  the  arrival  of  the  prison  contractor,  as  the  latter  went 
from  county  jail  to  county  jail,  gathering  in  his  flock,  and  taking 
them  away,  chained  together,  to  the  penitentiary  and  the  cane 
brakes  .  .  "where  only  a  big  buck  nigger  can  live,"  the  little  pick- 
pocket had  told  me,  with  fear  in  his  voice.   .  . 

He  came  .  .  the  contractor  .  .  to  our  jail  at  midnight.  All  of 
us  leaped  from  our  mattresses  to  witness  the  dreary  procession  of 
neck-chained  and  be-manacled  convicted  men.  In  the  light  of  the 
swinging  lanterns,  a  lurid  spectacle.  Our  man  was  taken  out  and 
chained  in  with  the  gang.  They  clanked  away  down  the  stairs, 
leaving  us  who  remained  with  heavy  chains  on  our  hope  instead 
of  on  our  necks  and  hands  and  legs  .  .  because  of  the  sight  we  had 
just  seen.  For  the  passing  day  or  so  we  were  so  depressed  that 
we  wandered  about  saying  nothing  to  each  other,  like  dumb  men. 

One  after  the  other  the  men  had  true  bills  found  against  them, 
and  little  slips  of  folded  paper  were  thrust  in  to  them  through  the 
bars  of  their  cells.  And  shyster  lawyers  who  fatten  on  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  prison-held  being,  began  to  hold  whispered  conversations 
(and  conferences)  from  without,  mainly  to  find  out  just  how  much 
each  prisoner  could  raise  for  fees  for  defence.   .   . 

Bud  and  I  were  the  only  ones  left.  All  the  others  had  had  true 
bills  found  against  them. 

•  •••••• 

But  there  came  an  afternoon  when  the  big,  bulky  sheriff,  with 
the  cruel,  quizzical  eyes,  came  to  the  back  bars  of  our  cell  and 
summoned  us  up  with  a  mysterious  air.   .   . 

"Well,  boys,"  he  began,  pausing  to  squirt  a  long,  brown  stream 
of  tobacco  juice,  "well,  boys "  and  he  paused  again. 

My  nerves  were  so  on  edge  that  I  controlled  with  difficulty  a 
mad  impulse  to  curse  at  the  sheriff  for  holding  us  in  such  needless 
suspense.  .  . 

Taking  another  deliberate  chew  off  his  plug,  he  told  us  that  after 
mature  deliberation  the  grand  jury  had  decided  that  there  was 
not  enough  grounds  for  finding  a  true  bill  against  us,  and,  as  a 
consequence,  we  were  to  be  let  go  free. 


152  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  following  morning  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  from  old 
Jacklin,  the  jailer,  that  Womber,  the  owner  of  the  warehouse,  had 
himself  gone  before  the  grand  jury  and  informed  them  that  he  did 
not  wish  to  press  the  charge  of  burglary  against  us.  .  . 

Womber,  Jacklin  said,  had  received  my  letter  and  at  first  had 
tossed  it  aside  .  .  even  thrown  it  contemptuously  into  the  waste- 
basket.  But  his  wife  and  daughter  had  raked  it  out  and  read  it 
and  had,  day  and  night,  given  him  no  peace  till  he  had  promised  to 
"go  easy  on  the  poor  boys." 

This  was  my  triumph  over  Bud — the  triumph  of  romance  over 
realism. 

*'I'm  glad  we're  getting  out,  but  there's  more  damn  fools  in  the 
world  than  I  thought,"  he  remarked,  with  a  sour  smile  of  gratification. 

•  •••••• 

And  now,  with  new,  trembling  eagerness,  we  two  began  waiting  for 
the  hour  of  our  release.  That  very  afternoon  it  would  be  surely, 
we  thought  .  .  that  night  .  .  then  the  next  morning  .  .  then  .  .  the 
next  day.  .  , 

But  until  a  week  more  had  flown,  the  sheriff  did  not  let  us  go. 
In  order  to  make  a  little  more  profit  on  his  feeding  contract,  averred 
our  prisoners. 

But  on  Saturday  morning  he  came  to  turn  us  loose.  By  this 
time  we  seemed  blood  brothers  to  the  others  in  the  cage  .  .  negro  .  . 
mulatto  .  .  white  .  .  criminal  and  vicious  .  .  weak,  and  victims  of 
circumstance  .  .  everything  sloughed  away.  Genuine  tears  stood 
in  our  eyes  as  with  strong  hand-grips  we  wished  the  poor  lads 
good  luck! 

We  stumbled  down  the  jail  stairway  up  which,  three  months 
before,  we  had  been  conducted  to  our  long  incarceration  in  the  cage. 
The  light  of  free  day  stormed  in  on  our  prison-inured  eyes  in  a 
blinding  deluge  of  white  and  gold  .  .  we  stepped  out  into  what 
seemed  not  an  ordinary  world,  but  a  madness  and  tumult  of  birds, 
a  delirious  green  of  trees  too  beautiful  for  any  place  outside  the 
garden  of  Paradise. 

"Come  on,"  said  Bud,  "let's  go  on  down  the  main  street  and  thank 
Womber  for  not  pressing  the  case " 

"To  hell  with  Womber!" 

**Well,  then,  I'm  going  to  thank  him." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  153 

"I'm  grateful  enough  .  .  I  might  write  him  a  letter  thanking 
him  .  .  but  I'm  not  anxious  to  linger  in  this  neighbourhood." 

So  Bud  and  I  parted  company,  shaking  hands  good-bye ;  he 
headed  west  .  .  to  China  and  the  East,  finally,  he  said  .  .  I  never 
knew  his  real  name  .  .  neither  of  us  gave  his  right  name  to  the 
town's  officials.   .   . 

As  I  sought  the  railroad  tracks  again,  the  good  air  and  my 
unwonted  freedom  made  me  stagger,  so  that  several  negroes  laughed 
at  me  heartily,  thinking  I  was  drunk. 

•  •••••• 

I  sat  down  on  a  railroad  tie  and  tenderly  and  solicitously  took  a 
brown  package  out  of  my  inside  pocket — the  brown  paper  on  which 
I  had  inscribed  with  enthusiasm  the  curious  songs  of  jail,  cocaine, 
criminal,  and  prostitute  life  I  had  heard  during  my  three  months' 
sojourn  behind  bars. 

I  looked  them  over  again.  With  all  their  smut  and  filth,  they 
were  j'et  full  of  naive  folk-touches  and  approximations  to  real 
balladry.  I  was  as  tender  of  the  manuscript  as  a  woman  would 
be  with  her  baby. 

•  •••••• 

The  sky  grew  overcast.  A  rain  storm  blew  up.  A  heavy  wind 
mixed  with  driving  wet  .  .  chilly  .  .  I  found  shelter  under  a  leaky 
shed  .  .  was  soggy  and  miserable  .  .  even  wished,  in  a  weak  moment, 
for  the  comparative  comfort  of  my  cell  again.  .  . 

The  fast  freight  I  was  waiting  for  came  rocking  along.  I  made 
a  run  for  it  in  the  rapidly  gathering  dusk.  I  grabbed  the  bar  on 
one  side  and  made  a  leap  for  the  step,  but  missed,  like  a  frantic 
fool,  with  one  foot — luckily  caught  it  with  the  other,  or  I  might 
have  fallen  underneath — and  was  aboard,  my  arms  almost  wrenched 
from  their  sockets. 

Not  till  I  had  climbed  in  between  the  cars  on  the  bumpers  did  I 
realise  that  my  coat  had  been  torn  open  and  my  much-valued 
songs  jostled  out. 

Without  hesitation  I  hurled  myself  bodily  off  the  train.  My 
one  idea  to  regain  the  MSS.  I  landed  on  my  shoulders,  saw  stars, 
rolled  over  and  over.  I  groped  up  and  down.  And  tears  rained 
from  my  eyes  when  I  understood  those  rhymes  were  lost  forever  .  .  . 

It  was  midnight  before  I  caught  another  freight.  I  climbed 
wearily  into  an  empty  box  car  while  the  freight  was  standing  still. 


154  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  was  seen.  A  brakeman  came  to  the  door  and  lifted  up  his  lantern, 
glancing  within,  I  was  crouching,  wet  and  forlorn,  in  a  corner 
of  the  car,  waiting  for  the  freight  to  be  under  way. 

"Come  on  out  with  you !  Hit  the  grit !"  commanded  the  "shack" 
grimly. 

I  rose.  I  came  to  the  door.  I  hated  him  in  my  heart,  but  quite 
simply  and  movingly  I  recited  the  story  of  my  imprisonment,  ending 
by  asking  him  to  let  me  ride,  in  the  name  of  God. 

He  crunched  away  down  the  path,  his  lantern  bobbing  as  he  went. 

All  night  long  I  rode  .  .  bumpity-bump,  bumpity-bump,  bumpity- 
bump !  All  night  long  my  head  was  a-f erment  with  dreams  of  the 
great  things  I  would  achieve,  now  that  I  was  free  of  the  shadow 
of  imprisonment. 

•  •••••• 

When  I  walked  down  the  streets  of  Haberford  once  more,  though 
I  was  leathery  and  stronger-looking,  my  adventures  had  added  no 
meat  to  my  bones.  I  was  amused  at  myself  as  I  walked  along  more 
than  usually  erect,  for  no  other  reason  than  to  keep  my  coat-tail 
well  down  in  back  in  order  not  to  show  the  hole  in  the  seat  of  my 
trousers.  As  I  came  down  the  street  on  which  my  father  and  I 
had  lived,  an  anticipatory  pleasure  of  being  recognised  as  a  sort 
of  returned  Odysseus  beat  through  my  veins  like  a  drum.  But  no 
one  saw  me  who  knew  me.     It  hurt  me  to  come  home,  unheralded. 

I  came  to  the  house  where  I  had  dwelt.  I  pulled  the  bell.  There 
was  no  answer.  I  walked  around  the  corner  to  the  telegraph  office. 
I  was  overjoyed  to  see  lean,  lanky  Phil,  the  telegraph  operator, 
half  sleeping,  as  usual,  over  the  key  of  his  instrument. 

"Hel-lo,  John  Gregory !"  he  shouted,  with  glad  surprise  in  his 
voice. 

He  telephoned  my  father  .  .  who  came  over  from  the  works, 
running  with  gladness.  I  was  immediately  taken  home.  I  took 
three  baths  that  afternoon  before  I  felt  civilised  again.  .  . 

My  father  had  returned  to  the  Composite  Works.  I  was  alone  in 
my  little  room,  with  all  my  cherished  books  once  more.  They  had 
been,  I  could  plainly  observe,  kept  orderly  and  free  of  dust,  against 
my  home-coming.     I  took  down  my  favourite  books,  kissing  each 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  155 

one  of  them  like  a  sweetheart.  Then  I  read  here  and  there  in  all 
of  them,  observing  all  the  old  passages  I  had  marked.  I  lay  in  all 
attitudes.  Sprawling  on  the  floor  on  my  back,  on  my  belly  .  .  on 
my  side  .  .  now  with  my  knees  crossed.   .   . 

Whitman,  Shakespeare,  Scott,  Shelley,  Byron  .  .  Speke,  Burton, 
Stanley  .  .  my  real  comrades !  .  .  my  real  world !  Rather  a  world 
of  books  than  a  world  of  actuality !   .   . 

I  was  so  glad  to  be  among  my  books  again  that  for  a  month  I 
gave  no  thought  to  the  future.  I  did  nothing  but  read  and  study 
.  .  except  at  those  times  when  I  was  talking  to  people  prodigiously 
of  my  trip  and  what  I  had  seen  and  been  through.  And  naturally 
and  deftly  I  wove  huge  strips  of  imagination  and  sheer  invention 
into  the  woof  of  every  tale  or  anecdote.   .   . 

I  captained  ships,  saw  Chinese  slaughtered  by  the  thousands, 
fought  bandits  on  the  outskirts  of  Manila,  helped  loot  the  palace 
of  the  empress  in  the  Sacred  City  at  Pekin  .  .  tales  of  peril  and 
adventure  that  I  had  heard  others  relate  at  camp-fires,  in  jail,  in 
the  forecastle,  on  the  transport,  I  unhesitatingly  appropriated  as 
my  own  experiences. 

All  the  papers  printed  stories  about  me.  And  I  was  proud 
about  it.  And  I  became  prouder  still  when  I  sold  a  story  in  two 
parts  to  a  New  York  Sunday  paper.   .   .   I  liked  the  notoriety.   .   . 

But  as  usual,  the  yarns  I  retailed  struck  in  upon  my  own  imagi- 
nation, too  .  .  just  as  had  my  earlier  stories  of  killing  Indians. 
Particularly  the  tale  I  had  related  of  having  seen  dead  Chinamen 
in  heaps  with  their  heads  lopped  off.  A  nightmare  of  this  imaginary 
episode  began  to  come  to  me.  And  another  dream  I  had — of  a 
huge  Boxer,  with  a  cutlass,  standing  over  me.  And  he  was  about 
to  carve  me  piecemeal  while  I  lay  bound  and  helpless  before  him. 
The  dream  persisted  so  strongly  that,  after  I  awoke,  I  still  seemed 
to  see  him  standing  in  a  corner  of  my  room.  And  I  cried  aloud. 
And  felt  foolish  when  it  brought  my  father  in.  So  I  stopped  making 
up  adventures,  especially  the  disagreeable  ones,  because  they 
eventually  had  more  effect  on  me  than  they  did  on  my  auditors. 

My  father  had  changed  boarding  places  .  .  but,  as  usual,  it  was 
not  better  food,  but  a  little,  dark  widow  that  attracted  him  to 
that  boarding  house. 


166  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  now  devoted  myself  exclusively  to  poetry — the  reading  of  it. 
I  always  had  a  book  in  my  pocket.  I  read  even  at  meals,  despite 
my  father's  protests  that  it  was  bad-mannered. 

Breasted's  book  store,  down  in  Newark,  was  where  I  was  nearly 
always  to  be  found,  in  the  late  afternoons. 

It  was  there,  in  the  murky  light  of  a  dying  twilight,  that  I  came 
upon  the  book  that  has  meant  more  to  my  life  than  any  other 
book  ever  written.   .   . 

For  a  long  time  I  had  known  of  John  Keats,  that  there  was  such 
a  poet.  But,  in  the  fever  of  my  adolescence,  in  the  ferment  of 
my  tramp-life,  I  had  not  yet  procured  his  poetry.  .  . 

Now,  here  were  his  complete  works,  right  at  hand,  in  one  volume 
.  .  a  damaged  but  typographically  intact  copy.  .  . 

I  had,  once  before,  dipped  into  \ns  Endymion  and  had  been 
discouraged  .  .  but  this  time  I  began  to  read  him  with  his  very  first 
lines — ^his  dedication  to  Leigh  Hunt,  beginning: 

"Glory  and  loveliness  have  passed  away." 

Then  I  went  on  to  a  pastoral  piece: 

"I  stood  tiptoe  upon  a  little  hill." 

I  forgot  where  I  was.  A  new  world  of  beauty  was  opened  to 
me.  .  .  I  read  and  read.  .  . 

"Come,  Gregory,  it's  time  to  close" — a  voice  at  my  elbow.  It  was 
Breasted's  assistant,  a  little,  curious  man  who  reminded  me  of  my 
sky-pilot  at  Sydney.  He,  also,  wore  a  black,  long-tailed  coat.  He 
was  known  as  "the  perfcssor." 

"You've  been  standing  here  as  quiet  as  a  crane  for  three  hours." 

"How  much  do  you  want  for  this  book?" 

"A  quarter  .  .  for  you !"  He  always  affected  to  make  me  special 
reductions,  as  an  old  customer.  .  . 

A  quarter  was  all  I  had.  I  paid  for  my  Keats,  and  walked  home. 
Walked?  I  went  with  wings  on  each  heel.  I  was  as  genuinely 
converted  to  a  new  life  as  a  sinner  is  converted  to  the  Christian 
religion. 

I  lit  the  light  in  my  room.  All  night  I  read  and  re-read,  not  a  whit 
sleepy  or  tired. 

I  went  for  a  week  in  a  mad  dream,  my  face  shining  and  glowing 
with  inner  ecstasy  and  happiness. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  157 

There  did  not  seem  to  be  time  enough  in  the  twenty-four  hours  of 
each  day  for  reading  and  studying  and  writing.  And  a  new  thing 
came  to  me:  a  shame  for  my  shadow  thinness  and  a  desire  to  build 
myself  into  a  better  physical  man. 

At  that  time  McFadden's  Physical  Culture  Magazine  was  becom- 
ing widely  read.  I  came  across  a  copy  of  it.  I  found  in  it  a  guide 
to  what  I  was  in  search  for.  Faithfully  I  took  up  physical  culture. 
Fanatically  I  kept  all  the  windows  open,  wore  as  little  clothing  as 
possible  .  .  adopted  a  certain  walk  on  tiptoe,  like  a  person  walking 
on  egg-shells,  to  develop  the  calves  of  my  legs  from  their  thinness 
to  a  more  proportionate  shape.  And,  as  I  walked,  I  filled  and 
emptied  my  lungs  like  a  bellows.  I  kept  a  small  statue  of  Apollo 
Belvedere  on  top  of  my  bookcase.  I  had  a  print  of  the  Flying 
Mercury  on  the  wall,  at  the  foot  of  my  bed.  Each  morning,  on 
waking,  I  filled  my  mind  full  of  these  perfect  specimens  of  manhood, 
considering  that  by  so  doing  I  would  gradually  pilot  my  body  to 
physical  perfection.  .  .  I  know  that  many  things  I  say  about 
myself  will  appeal  to  the  "wit"  as  humorous.  I  can't  help  it  if  I 
am  laughed  at  .  .  everybody  would  be,  if  they  told  the  truth  about 
themselves,  like  this. 


I  joined  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  for  the  physical  side,  not  for  the  spiritual. 
I  found  a  spirit  that  I  did  not  like  there,  a  sort  of  mental  deadness 
and  ineffectuality.  But  one  thing  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  did  for  me:  I 
found  on  the  bulletin  board  one  day  an  announcement  of  the  summer 
term  of  Mt.  Hebron  Preparatory  School.  .  .  It  was  a  school  for 
poor  boys  and  men  .  .  neither  age  nor  even  previous  preparation 
counted  .  .  only  earnestness  of  purpose.  And,  as  each  student 
had  his  two  hours'  work  a  day  to  do,  the  expense  for  each  term 
was  nominal. 

I  had  been  paid  fifty  dollars  for  my  article  on  my  adventures  in 
the  New  York  Sunday  paper.  A  Newark  Sunday  paper  bought 
several  articles  also.  To  the  money  I  had  saved  up  my  father 
contributed  as  much  again,     I  started  for  preparatory  school. 

Mt.  Hebron  School  consisted  of  a  series  of  buildings  set  apart 
on  a  hill.  It  was  an  evangelical  school  founded  by  a  well-known 
revivalist — ^William  Moreton. 


158  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Around  it  lay  pine  forests  and,  at  its  feet,  the  valley  of  the 
Connecticut  River. 

No  matter  what  subjects  they  taught,  the  main  endeavour 
of  its  professors,  in  season  and  out,  was  the  conversion  of  every 
freshman  immediately  to  Evangelical  Christianity,  as  soon  as  he 
had  had  his  quarters  assigned  to  him.   .  . 

Scarcely  had  we  settled  ourselves,  each  with  his  roommate,  than 
the  two  weeks'  revival  began.  I  will  not  enter  into  the  details  of 
this  revival.  This  was  merely  the  opening  of  the  summer  term. 
At  the  opening  of  the  school  year  in  the  fall — that  was  when  they 
held  the  real  revival, — and  the  story  of  the  whipped-up  frenzy  of 
that  will  afford  a  more  characteristic  flavour. 

It  put  a  singing  in  my  heart  to  find  myself  at  last  a  student  in  a 
regular  preparatory  school,  with  my  face  set  toward  college. 

I  had  passed  my  examinations  with  credit,  especially  the  one  in 
the  Bible.  This  won  me  immediate  notice  and  approval  among  the 
professors.  Fortunate,  indeed,  I  now  regarded  those  three  months 
in  jail  .  .  the  most  fruitful  and  corrective  period  of  my  life.  For 
not  only  had  I  studied  the  Bible  assiduously  there,  but  I  had 
learned  American  history — especially  that  of  the  Civil  War  period 
.  .  and  I  had  studied  arithmetic  and  algebra,  so  that  in  these 
subjects  I  managed  to  slide  through. 

•  •••••• 

I  was  put  to  cleaning  stalls  and  currying  horses  for  my  two  hours' 
work  each  day.  Though  I  hated  manual  labour,  I  bent  my  back 
to  the  tasks  with  a  will,  glad  to  endure  for  the  fulfillment  of  my 
dream. 

That  first  summer  I  took  Vergil  and  began  Homer.  I  had  studied 
these  poets  by  myself  already,  but  found  many  slack  ends  that  only 
the  aid  and  guidance  of  a  professor  could  clear  up.  And,  allowing 
for  their  narrow  religious  viewpoints,  real  or  affected,  in  order  to 
hold  their  positions,  they  were  fine  teachers — my  teachers  of  Latin 
and  Greek — with  real  fire  in  them  .  .  Professor  Lang  made  Homer 
and  his  days  live  for  us.  The  old  Greek  warriors  rose  up  from  the 
dust,  and  I  could  see  the  shining  of  their  armour,  hear  the  clash 
of  their  swords. 

Professor  Dunn  made  of  Vergil  a  contemporary  poet.   .  . 

Lang  was  of  the  fair  Norse  type,  so  akin  to  the  Greek  in  adven- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  159 

turous  spirit.    Dunn  was  of  the  dark,  stocky,  imperial  Roman  type. 
In  a  toga  he  would  have  resembled  some  Roman  senator.  .  . 

That  summer  there  were  long  woodland  walks  for  me,  when  I 
would  take  a  volume  of  some  great  English  poet  from  the  library  and 
roam  far  a-field. 

•  •••••• 

After  that  first  summer  it  was  my  father  who  kept  me  at  school. 
He  was  too  poor  to  pay  in  a  lump  sum  for  my  tuition,  so  he  sent 
four  dollars  every  week  from  his  meagre  pay,  to  keep  me  going. 

There  was  a  wide,  wind-swept  oval  for  an  athletic  field.  From 
it  you  gazed  on  a  beautiful  vista  of  valleys  and  enfolding  hills. 
Here  every  afternoon  I  practiced  running  .  .  to  the  frequent 
derision  of  the  other  athletes,  who  made  fun  of  my  skinny  legs, 
body,  and  arms.   .  . 

But  as  I  ran,  and  ran,  every  afternoon,  my  mile,  the  boys  stopped 
laughing,  and  I  heard  them  say  among  themselves,  "Old  Gregory, 
he'll  get  there !" 

After  the  exercise  there  would  be  the  rub-down  with  fragrant 
witch  hazel  .  .  then  supper ! 

A  dining-room,  filled  to  the  full,  every  table,  with  five  hundred 
irrepressible  boys  .  .  it  was  a  cheerful  and  good  attendance  at  each 
of  the  three  meals.  We  joined  together  in  saying  a  blessing.  We 
sang  a  lusty  hymn  together,  accompanied  on  the  little,  wheezy, 
dining-room  organ.  I  liked  the  good,  simple  melodies  sung,  straight 
and  hearty,  without  trills  and  twirls.   .  . 

Every  night,  just  before  "lights  out,"  at  ten,  fifteen  minutes 
was  set  aside,  called  "silent  time" — and  likewise  in  the  morning, 
just  before  breakfast-bell — for  prayer  and  religious  meditation. 

Jimmy  Anderson,  my  little  blond  roommate,  fair-haired  and 
delicate-faced  as  a  girl  (his  sisters,  on  the  contrary,  not  femininely 
pretty,  as  he,  but  masculine  and  handsome) — Jimmy  Anderson 
read  his  Bible  and  knelt  and  prayed  during  both  "silent  times." 

I  read  the  Bible  and  prayed  for  the  quiet,  religious  luxury  of  it. 
My  prayer,  when  I  prayed,  was  just  to  "God,"  not  Jehovah  .  .  not 
I   to  God  of  any  sect,  religion,  creed. 

"Dear  God,"  ran  always  my  prayer,  "Dear  God,  if  you  really 


160  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

exist,  make  me  a  great  poet.     I  ask  for  nothing  else.     Only  let 
me  become  famous." 

I  was  so  happy  in  my  studies, — my  work,  even, — my  wanderings 
in  the  woods  and  along  the  country  roads,  with  the  poets  under  my 
arms.  .  .  I  read  them  all,  from  Layamon's  Brut  on.  For,  for 
me,  all  that  existed  was  poetry.  At  this  stage  of  my  life  it  was  my 
be-all  and  end-all. 

•  •••••• 

My  father  was  a  most  impractical  man.  He  would  sit  in  his 
office  as  foreman,  read  the  New  York  Herald,  and  suck  at  an  unlit 
cigar,  telling  anyone  who  listened  how  he  would  be  quite  happy 
to  retire  and  run  a  little  chicken  farm  somewhere  the  rest  of  his  life. 

The  men  all  liked  him  .  .  gave  him  a  present  every  Christmas  .  . 
but  they  never  jumped  up  and  lit  into  their  work,  when  they  saw 
him  coming,  as  they  did  for  the  other  bosses.  And  the  management, 
knowing  his  easiness,  never  paid  him  over  twenty  or  twenty-five 
dollars  a  week.  But  whenever  I  could  cozen  an  extra  dollar  out  of 
him,  alleging  extra  school  expenses,  I  would  do  so.  It  meant  that 
I  could  buy  some  more  books  of  poetry. 

I  was  sent  from  the  stable  out  into  the  fields  to  work  .  .  harder 
and  more  back-breaking  than  currying  horses.  But  my  labour  was 
alleviated  by  the  fact  that  a  little  renegade  ex-priest  from  Italy 
worked  by  my  side, — and  while  we  weeded  beets  or  onions,  or  hoed 
potatoes,  he  taught  me  how  to  make  Latin  a  living  language  by 
conversing  in  it  with  me. 

There  were  no  women  on  the  hill  but  the  professors'  wives,  and 
they  were  an  unattractive  lot.  We  were  as  exempt  from  feminine 
influence  as  a  gathering  of  monks — excepting  when  permission  was 
given  any  of  us  to  go  over  to  Fairfield,  where,  besides  the  native 
New  England  population  of  women  and  girls,  was  situated  the  girls' 
branch  of  our  educational  establishment.  .  . 

The  fall  term  .  .  the  opening  of  the  regular  school  year.  The 
regular  students  began  to  pour  in,  dumping  off  the  frequent  trains 
at  the  little  school  station  .  .  absurd  youths  dressed  in  the  exag- 
gerated style  of  college  and  preparatory  school  .  .  peg-top  trousers 


1 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  161 

.  .  jaunty,  postage-stamp  caps  .  .  and  there  was  cheering  and 
hat-waving  and  singing  in  the  parlours  of  the  dormitories  on 
each  floor. 

There  were  three  dormitory  groups  on  the  "hill."  The  "villas" 
were  the  most  aristocratic.  There  the  "gentlemen"  among  the 
students,  and  the  teachers'  favourites,  dwelt — with  the  teachers. 
Then  there  was  Crosston  Hall,  and  Oberly.  Crosston  was  the  least 
desirable  of  the  halls.     It  was  there  that  I  lived. 

We  were  hardly  settled  in  our  rooms  when  the  usual  fall  revival 
began.  .  . 

One  of  the  founders  of  the  school,  a  well-known  New  England 
manufacturer,  came  on  his  yearly  pilgrimage  .  .  a  fanatic  disciple 
of  the  great  Moreton,  he  considered  it  his  duty  to  see  to  the 
immediate  conversion,  by  every  form  of  persuasion  and  subtle 
compulsion,  of  every  newly  arrived  student. 

Rask  was  a  tall,  lean,  ashen-faced  man.  He  had  yellow,  prominent 
teeth  and  an  irregular,  ascetic  face.  In  his  eyes  shone  an  undying 
lightning  and  fire  of  sincere  fanaticism  and  spiritual  ruthlessness 
that,  in  mediaeval  times,  would  not  have  stopped  short  of  the  stake 
and  fagot  to  convince  sinners  of  the  error  of  their  ways. 

The  evangelist's  two  sons  also  hove  on  the  scene  from  across  the 
river  .  .  both  of  them  were  men  of  pleasing  appearance.  There  was 
the  youthful,  elegant,  dark,  intellectual-browed  John  Moreton,  who 
had  doctorates  of  divinity  from  half  a  dozen  big  theological  semi- 
naries at  home  and  abroad ;  and  there  was  the  business  man  of  the 
two — Stephen,  middle-aged  before  his  time,  staid  and  formal  .  . 
to  the  latter,  the  twin  schools:  the  seminary  for  girls  and  the 
preparatory  school  for  boys — and  the  revivalistic  religion  that 
went  with  them,  meant  a  sort  of  exalted  business  functioning  .  .  this 
I  say  not  at  all  invidiously  .  .  the  practical  business  ideal  was  to 
him  the  highest  way  of  men's  getting  together  .  .  the  quid  pro  quo 
basis  that  even  God  accepted. 

The  first  night  of  the  opening  of  the  term,  when  the  boys  had 
scarcely  been  herded  together  in  their  respective  dormitories,  the 
beginning  of  the  revival  was  announced  from  the  little  organ  that 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  dining-room  .  .  a  compulsory  meeting, 
of  course.    In  newly  acquainted  groups,  singing,  whistling,  talking, 


162  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

and  laughing,  as  schoolboys  will,  the  students  tramped  along  the 
winding  path  that  led  to  the  chapel  on  the  crest  of  the  hill. 

On  the  platform  sat  the  teachers.  In  the  most  prominent  chair, 
with  its  plush  seat  and  its  old-fasliioned  peaked  back,  sat  the 
evangelist-manufacturer,  Rask, — the  shine  of  hungry  fanaticism  in 
his  face  like  a  beacon,  his  legs  crossed,  a  dazzling  shine  on  his 
shoes,  his  hands  clutching  a  hymn  book  like  a  warrior's  weapon. 

Little  Principal  Stanton  stood  nearby,  his  eyes  gleaming  spec- 
trally through  his  glasses,  his  teeth  shining  like  those  of  a  miniature 
Roosevelt. 

"We  will  begin,"  he  snapped  decisively,  "with  John  Moreton's 
favourite  hymn,  when  he  was  with  us  in  this  world." 

We  rose  and  sang,  "There  is  a  green  hill  far  away " 

Then  there  were  prayers  and  hymns  and  more  prayers,  and  a 
lengthy  exhortation  from  Rask,  who  avowed  that  if  it  wasn't  for 
God  in  his  heart  he  couldn't  run  his  business  the  way  he  did ;  that 
God  was  with  him  every  hour  of  his  life, — and  oh,  wouldn't  every 
boy  there  before  him  take  the  decisive  step  and  come  to  Christ,  and 
find  the  joy  and  peace  that  passeth  understanding  .  .  he  would  not 
stop  exhorting,  he  asserted,  till  every  boy  in  the  room  had  come 
to  Jesus.  .  . 

And  row  by  row, — Rask  still  standing  and  exhorting, — each 
student  was  solicited  by  the  seniors,  who  went  about  from  bench  to 
bench,  kneeling  by  sinners  who  proved  more  refractory  .  .  the 
professors  joined  in  the  task,  led  by  the  principal  himself. 

Finally  they  eliminated  the  sheep  from  the  goats  by  asking  all 
who  accepted  the  salvation  of  Christ  to  rise.  In  one  sweep,  most  of 
the  boys  rose  to  their  feet  .  .  some  sheepishly,  to  run  with  the  crowd 
.  .  but  a  few  of  us  were  more  sincere,  and  did  not  rise  .  .  it  was  at 
these  that  the  true  fire  of  the  professors  and  seniors  was  levelled. 

They  knelt  by  us.  They  prayed.  They  agonised.  They  groaned. 
They  adjured  us,  by  our  mothers,  to  come  to  Jesus  .  .  all  the  while, 
over  and  over  again,  softly,  was  sung,  "0  Lamb  of  God,  I  come, 
I  come!" 

*'Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea, 
But  that  Thy  blood  was  shed  for  me !" 

Weakening  under  the  pressure,  and  swung  by  the  power  of  herd- 
instinct,  most  of  us  "came." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  163 

Then  there  was  the  hypnotism  of  the  enthusiasm  which  laid  hold 
of  us.  It  was  indescribable  in  its  power.  It  even  made  me  want 
to  rise  and  declare  myself,  to  shout  and  sing,  to  join  the  religious 
and  emotional  debauch. 

When  chapel  adjourned  at  ten  o'clock  many  had  been  cajoled 
and  bullied  into  the  fold.  Then,  still  insatiable  for  religion,  at  the 
villas  and  halls,  the  praying  and  hymn-singing  was  kept  up. 

In  the  big  parlour  of  Crosston  Hall  the  boys  grouped  in  prayer 
and  rejoicing.  One  after  the  other  each  one  rose  and  told  what 
God  had  done  for  him.  One  after  the  other,  each  offered  up 
prayer. 

Toward  three  o'clock  the  climax  was  reached,  when  the  captain 
of  the  hall's  football  team  jumped  to  a  table  in  an  extra  burst  of 
enthusiasm  and  shouted,  "Boys,  all  together  now, — three  cheers  for 
Jesus  Christ !" 

I  was  one  of  the  three  in  our  hall  who  resisted  all  efforts  at 
conversion.  The  next  morning  a  group  of  covertees  knelt  and 
prayed  for  me,  in  front  of  my  door  .  .  that  God  might  soften  the 
hardness  of  my  heart  and  show  me  the  Light. 

For  two  weeks  the  flame  of  the  revival  burned.  Some  were  of  the 
opinion  that  from  the  school  this  time  a  fire  would  go  forth  and 
sweep  the  world.  .  . 

There  were  prayer-meetings,  prayer-meetings,  prayer-meetings  .  , 
between  classes,  during  study-periods,  at  every  odd  minute  of  time  to 
be  snatched. 

Though,  my  preceding  summer,  my  chief  pastime  had  been  to 
argue  against  the  Bible,  all  this  praying  and  mental  pressure  was 
bound  to  have  an  influence  on  my  imaginative  nature.  .  . 

Besides,  the  temptation  toward  hypocrisy  was  enormous.  The 
school  was  honeycombed  with  holy  spies  who  imputed  it  merit  to 
report  the  laxity  of  others.  And,  once  you  professed  open  belief, 
everything  immediately  grew  easy  and  smooth — even  to  the  winning 
of  scholarships  there,  and,  on  graduation,  in  the  chief  colleges  of 
the  land. 

So,  suddenly,  I  took  to  testifying  at  prayer  meetings,  half 
believing  I  meant  It,  half  because  of  the  advantages  being  a  professed 
Christian  offered.  And  the  leaders  sang  and  rejoiced  doubly  In  the 
Lord  over  the  signal  conversion  of  so  hard  and  obdurate  a  sinner  as  I. 


164  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

One  day,  as  I  was  marchirig  in  line  from  the  chapel,  a  queer  thing 
took  place.  .  . 

One  of  the  boys  whom  I  could  not  identify  hissed,  "Go  on,  you 
hypocrite!"  at  me. 


I 


In  a  few  weeks  the  pendulum  swung  as  far  to  the  other  extreme. 
My  hypocrisy  made  me  sick  of  living  in  my  own  body  with  myself. 
I  threw  off  the  transient  cloak  of  assumed  belief.  Once  more  I 
attacked  the  stupidity  of  belief  in  a  six-day  God,  inventor  of  an 
impossible  paradise,  an  equally  impossible  hell.  ' 

In  the  early  spring  I  left  school  before  the  term  was  over, 
impatient,  restless,  at  odds  with  the  faculty.  .  .  Stanton  termed  it 
**under  a  cloud."    I  had  my  eyes  set  on  another  ideal.  M 

*******  j 

i 

Down  in  the  mosquito-infested  pine  woods  of  New  Jersey  Stephen      j 
Barton  had  located.      Barton  was   possessed  with   the  dream   of 
making  the  men   and  women   of   the  world   physically  perfect — a      j 
harking  back  to  the  old  Greeks  with  their  worship  of  the  perfection      ' 
of  bodily  beauty   and  health.      I  had  long  been   a   reader   of  his 
magazines,  a  follower  of  his   cult,   and,  now   that  I  heard   of  his 
planning  to  build  a  city  out  in  the  open  country,  where  people  could 
congregate  who  wished  to  live  according  to  his  teachings,  I  enrolled 
myself  ardently  as  one  of  his  first  followers  and  disciples.  .  . 

Barton  had  taken  over  a  great  barn-like,  abandoned  factory 
building  that  stood  on  the  shore  of  an  artificial  lake — ^which,  in  his 
wife's  honour,  he  re-named  after  her,  Lake  Emily  .  .  his  wife  was  a 
fussy  Canadian  woman  who  interfered  in  everyone's  affairs  beyond 
endurable  measure.  I  was  told  she  used  to  steal  off  the  chair  the 
old  clothes  Barton  used  to  wear  by  preference — paddling  along  the 
winding  creek  in  a  canoe  to  his  work  each  morning,  his  pants  rolled 
up  to  the  knees — and  put  in  their  stead  a  new,  nicely  creased  suit ! 
•  •••••• 

Barton's  face  was  wizened  and  worried  .  .  but,  when  we  took  our 
morning  shower,  after  exercise,  under  the  lifted  gates  of  the  dam, 
his  body  showed  like  a  pyramid  of  perfect  muscles  .  .  though  his 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  165 

legs — one  of  the  boys  who  had  known  him  a  long  time  said  his 
chief  sorrow  was  that  he  could  never  develop  his  legs  the  way  he 
wished  them  to  be. 

We  began  the  building  of  the  city.  We  laid  out  the  streets  through 
the  pines  .  .  many  of  us  went  clad  in  trunks  .  .  or  in  nothing  .  .  as 
we  surveyed,  and  drove  stakes.  The  play  of  the  sun  and  the  wind 
on  the  naked  skin — there  is  nothing  pleasanter,  what  though  one 
has  to  slap  away  horseflies  and  mosquitoes  .  .  the  vistas  through  the 
pines  were  glorious.  I  saw  in  my  mind's  eyes  a  world  of  the 
physically  perfect ! 

As  the  laying  out  of  the  sites  and  the  streets  progressed,  dwellers 
came  to  join  with  us  .  .  fanatics  .  .  "nuts"  of  every  description  .  . 
the  sick. 

A  woman,  the  wife  of  some  bishop  or  other,  came  to  join  us  early 
in  the  season.  She  had  cancer  and  came  there  to  be  cured  of  it  by 
the  nature  treatment.  She  brought  with  her  an  old-fashioned  army 
tent,  and  rented  for  its  location  the  most  desirable  site  on  the  lake 
shore. 

She  had  a  disagreement  with  Barton — and  left  to  consult 
regular  doctors.  She  turned  over  all  rights  to  her  tent  and  to 
the  site  to  me. 

"And  mind  you,  Mr.  Gregory,"  she  admonished,  "this  tent  and  the 
place  it  stands  on  is  as  much  yours  as  if  you  paid  for  it  .  .  for  it's 
paid  for  till  Christmas." 

So,  with  my  Shelley,  my  Keats,  and  my  growing  pile  of  manuscript, 
I  took  possession.  And  with  covering  from  the  wet  and  weather 
over  my  head  and  with  plenty  of  mosquito  netting,  I  felt  established 
for  the  summer. 

Every  morning  I  rose  to  behold  the  beauty  of  the  little,  mist- 
wreathed  lake.  Every  morning  I  plunged,  naked,  into  the  water, 
and  swam  the  quarter  of  a  mile  out  to  the  float,  and  there  went 
through  my  system  of  calisthenics. 

I  lived  religiously  on  one  meal  a  day — a  mono-diet  (mostly)  of 
whole  wheat  grains,  soaked  in  water  till  they  burst  open  to  the  white 
of  the  inside  kernel.   .   . 

Everybody  in  our  rapidly  increasing  tent-colony  enjoyed  a  fad 
of  his  or  her  own.    There  was  a  little  brown  woman  like  the  shrivelled 


166  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

inside  of  an  old  walnut,  who  believed  that  you  should  imbibe  no  fluid 
other  than  that  found  in  the  eating  of  fruits  .  .  when  she  wanted  a 
drink  she  never  went  to  the  pitcher,  bucket,  or  well  .  .  instead  she 
sucked  oranges  or  ate  some  watermelon.  There  was  a  man  from 
Philadelphia  who  ate  nothing  but  raw  meat.  He  had  eruptions  all 
over  his  body  from  the  diet,  but  still  persisted  in  it.  There  were 
several  young  Italian  nature-folk  who  ate  nothing  but  vegetables 
and  fruits,  raw.  They  insisted  that  all  the  ills  of  flesh  came  to 
humanity  with  the  cooking  of  food,  that  the  sun  was  enough  of  a 
chef.  If  appearances  prove  anything,  theirs  was  the  theory  nearest 
right.  They  were  like  two  fine,  sleek  animals.  A  fire  of  health  shone 
in  their  eyes.  As  they  swam  off  the  dam  they  looked  like  two  strong 
seals. 

Each  had  his  special  method  of  exercising — bending,  jumping, 
flexing  the  muscles  this  way  or  that  .  .  lying,  sitting,  standing !  .  . 
those  who  brought  children  allowed  them  to  run  naked.  And  we 
older  ones  went  naked,  when  we  reached  secluded  places  in  the  woods. 

The  townspeople  from  neighbouring  small  towns  and  other  coun- 
try folk  used  to  come  from  miles  about,  Sundays,  to  watch  us  swim 
and  exercise.  The  women  wore  men's  bathing  suits,  the  men  wore  just 
trunks.  I  wore  only  a  gee-string,  till  Barton  called  me  aside  and 
informed  me,  that,  although  he  didn't  mind  it,  others  objected.  I 
donned  trunks,  then,  like  the  rest  of  the  men.  .  . 

Behind  board  lean-tos, — one  for  the  men,  the  other  for  the  women, 
— ^we  dressed  and  undressed.   .   . 

One  Sunday  afternoon  a  Russian  Jewess  slipped  off  her  clothes, 
in  an  innocent  and  inoffensive  manner,  just  as  if  it  was  quite  the 
thing, — standing  up  in  plain  view  of  everybody.  There  went  up 
a  great  shout  of  spontaneous  astonishment  from  both  banks  of  the 
lake  where  the  on-lookers  sat.  But  the  shout  did  not  disturb  the 
rather  pretty,  dark  anarchist.  Leisurely  she  stepped  into  her  one- 
piece  bathing  suit. 

Barton  was  a  strange,  strong-minded,  ignorant  man.  Hardly 
able  to  compose  a  sentence  in  correct  English,  he  employed  educated, 
but  unresourceful  assistants  who  furnished  the  good  grammar,  while 
he  supplied  the  initiative  and  original  ideas,  and  increased  the 
influence  and  circulation  of  his  magazine.  Also  he  lived  strenuously 
up  to  the  doctrines  he  taught ;  fasting,  for  instance. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  167 

Soon  after  I  reached  "Perfection  City"  he  launched  on  his  two 
weeks'  annual  fast.  Up  in  the  big  house  where  he  lived,  in  the  next 
town  of  Andersonville  (he  himself  would  have  been  gladder  of  a 
mere  shack  or  tent  like  the  rest  of  us — but  his  wife  negated  any 
such  idea)  Mrs.  Barton  used  to  taunt  and  insult  him  by  putting  out 
the  best  food  under  his  nose,  during  this  time. 

Mrs.  Barton  was  a  terror.  She  was  ever  inviting  to  her  house 
that  kind  of  people  who  know  somebody  "worth  while"  or  are  related 
to  somebody  who,  in  their  turn,  are,  perhaps,  related  to — some- 
body else !  .  . 

In  their  presence  she  would  patronise  Barton  by  calling  him  "Ste- 
vie !"  in  her  drawling,  patronising  manner.   .   . 

When  the  woman  came  in  among  the  tents  and  shacks  of  our 
"city"  she  would,  in  speaking  with  any  of  us,  imply  all  sorts  of 
mean,  insinuating  things  about  her  reformer-husband.   .   . 

Barton,  they  said,  met  her  while  on  one  of  his  lecture  tours.   .  . 

Their  baby  .  .  a  little,  red  object  like  a  boiled  lobster  .  .  the 
anonymous,  undistinguished  creatures  all  babies  are  at  that  time — 
the  mother  used  to  bring  it  in  among  us  and  coo  and  coo  over  it  so 
ridiculously  that  we  made  her  behaviour  a  joke  among  us. 

Barton's  secretary  was  a  beautiful,  gentle,  large-eyed  girl  .  . 
wholly  feminine  .  .  soft-voiced  .  .  as  a  reaction  from  the  nagging 
of  his  wife,  from  her  blatancy  and  utter  lack  of  sympathy  with 
any  of  his  projects,  he  insensibly  drifted  into  a  relationship  closer 
and  closer,  with  this  girl  .  .  they  used  to  take  long  walks  into  the 
pines  together  .  .  and  be  observed  coming  back  slowly  out  of  the 
sunset  .  .  hand  in  hand  .  .  to  drop  each  other's  hands,  when  they 
considered  that  the  observing  line  of  vision  had  been  reached. 

Lying  under  my  huge  army  tent,  by  the  shore  of  pretty  little 
Lake  Emily,  I  dreamed  long  and  often,  in  the  hush  of  starry  mid- 
night, of  reconstructing  the  life  of  the  whole  world — especially  the 
love-life  between  men  and  women. 

Shelley  was  my  God,  not  Christ.  Shelley's  notes  to  Queen  Mob 
were  my  creed,  as  his  poetry  and  Whitman's  furnished  me  my  Bible. 
Through  them  I  would  reform  the  world ! 

I  had  not  realised  then  (as  Shelley  did  not  till  his  death),  the 
terrific  inertia  of  people,  their  content,  even,  with  the  cramping 


168  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

and  conventional  ideas  and  beliefs  that  hold  them  in  unconscious 
slavery.   .  . 

I  think  that  summer  I  learned  Shelley  and  Whitman  by  heart. 

And  Keats  was  more  than  my  creed.      He  comprised  my  life! 

Day  by  day  I  took  care  of  my  body,  gaining  in  weight,  filling  out 
the  hollows  in  my  face,  till  I  had  grown  into  a  presentable  young 
man.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  knew  the  meaning  of  perfect 
health.  Every  atom  of  my  blood  tingled  with  natural  happiness  as 
I  have  felt  it  in  later  days,  under  the  stimulation  of  good  wine. 

No  coffee,  no  tea,  no  beefsteak,  no  alcohol.  .   . 

On  that  summer's  ideal  living  I  built  the  foundation  of  the  health 
and  strength,  that,  long  after,  I  finally  acquired  as  a  permanent 
possession. 

Stephen  Barton  and  I  had  many  interesting  talks  together. 
With  the  cultural  background  of  Europe  he  might  have  been  a 
Rousseau  or  a  Phalanisterian.  As  it  was,  he  ran  a  "natural  life" 
magazine  which,  though  crude,  benefited  hundreds  of  people.  What 
though  it  showed  pictures  of  stupid  men  and  women  revealing,  in 
poses  rivalling  the  contortionist,  their  physical  development  ac- 
quired through  his  methods. 

We  would  collect  many  people  about  us,  to  serve  as  a  nucleus 
from  which  the  future  society  of  men  and  women  would  expand  .  . 
we  would  all  live  together  as  nearly  naked  as  possible,  because  that 
was,  after  all,  the  only  pure  thing  .  .  as  Art  showed,  in  its  painting 
and  sculpture.  We  would  make  our  livings  by  the  manufacture  of 
all  sorts  of  exercising  apparatus  and  health-foods.  .  . 

And  so  the  world  would  be  leavened  with  the  new  idea  .  .  and 
men  and  women  and  little  children  would  wander  forth  from  the 
great,  unclean,  insanitary  cities  and  live  in  clusters  of  pretty  cot- 
tages .  .  naked,  in  good  weather, — in  bad,  clothed  for  warmth  and 
comfort,  but  not  for  shame.  And  the  human  body  would  become 
holy. 

Meanwhile  the  petty,  local  fight  had  started  which  was  to  dis- 
rupt this  hope  of  Barton's,  and  thwart  its  fulfillment  forever. 
The  town  of  Andersonville  beoame  jealous  of  the  town  of  Cotts- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  169 

wold  because  the  latter  handled  most  of  the  mail  of  our  city  and 
thereby  had  achieved  the  position  of  third  or  fourth  class  post- 
ofRce — I  don't  know  exactly  which. 

The  struggle  commenced  when  the  two  lone  policemen  of  Ander- 
sonville  began  to  arrest  us — men  and  women — when  we  walked  into 
their  town  for  provisions,  clad  in  our  bathing  suits  .  .  later  on, 
we  were  forbidden  to  run  for  exercise,  in  our  bathing  suits,  on  the 
fine,  macadamised  road  that  passed  not  far  from  our  dwellings  .  . 
it  shocked  the  motorists. 

Yet  people  came  from  far  and  near,  just  to  be  shocked.  That 
seems  to  be  the  chief,  most  delightful,  and  only  lawfully  indulged 
emotion  of  the  Puritan. 

Barton  summoned  us  to  a  meeting,  one  night,  and  we  held  a  long 
palaver  over  the  situation.  We  decided  to  become  more  cautious, 
in  spite  of  a  few  hotheads  who  advised  defiance  to  the  hilt.   .  . 

And  the  beautiful  girl  that  possessed  such  fine  breasts  could  no 
longer  row  about  on  our  little  lake,  naked  to  the  waist.  And  we 
were  requested  to  go  far  in  among  the  trees  for  our  nude  sun-baths. 

The  more  radical  of  us  moved  entirely  into  the  woods,  despite 
the  sand  flies.   .   . 

Then  the  affair  simmered  down  to  quietness — till  the  New  York 
World  and  the  New  York  Journal  sent  out  their  reporters.  .  . 
After  that,  what  with  the  lurid  and  insinuating  stories  printed,  the 
state  authorities  began  to  look  into  the  matter — and  found  no 
harm  in  us. 

But  the  Andersonville  officials  were  out  for  blood.  Cottswold  was 
growing  too  fast  for  their  injured  civic  pride  and  vanity. 

"Can't  you  divide  your  mail  between  the  two  towns,  and  make 
them  both  third  or  fourth  class  or  whatever-it-is  postoffice  towns?" 
I  asked  Barton,  after  he  had  given  me  the  simple  explanation  of 
the  whole  affair. 

"No — for  if  I  took  anything  away  from  Cottswold  and  added  it 
to  Andersonville,  then  the  Cottswold  authorities  would  become  my 
adversaries,  too  .  .  the  only  thing  I  can  do,"  he  added,  "is  what 
I  meant  to  do  all  along, — as  soon  as  our  *city'  has  grown  important 
enough — have  'Perfection  City'  made  a  postoffice." 
"And  then  make  enemies  of  both  towns  at  once.''" 
He  threw  up  his  hands  in  despair  and  walked  away. 


170  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Having  quit  work  with  the  gang  that  was  laying  out  the  streets 
of  the  future  city  through  the  pines,  I  was  entirely  out  of  the  few 
dollars  my  several  weeks'  work  had  enabled  me  to  save  .  .  though 
but  little  was  needed  to  exist  by,  in  that  community  of  simple  livers 
.  .  my  procuring  my  tent  free  had  rendered  me  quite  inde- 
pendent. .  . 

One  afternoon  Barton  met  me  on  the  dam-head. 

"Come  on  in  swimming  with  me  .  .  I  have  something  to  talk  with 
you  about,"  he  said. 

We  swam  around  and  talked,  as  nonchalantly  as  two  other  men 
would  have  done,  sitting  in  their  club. 

"How  would  you  like  to  work  for  me  again?" 

"What  is  it  you  want  me  to  work  at?" 

"I  need  a  cook  for  my  nature  restaurant  .   .   can  you  cook?" 

I  thought.  I  knew  his  present  cook,  MacGregor,  the  Scot,  and 
I  didn't  want  to  do  him  out  of  a  job.  Besides,  I  didn't  know  how 
to  cook. 

The  first  objection  Barton  read  in  my  face. 

"MacGregor  is  quitting  .  .  I'm  not  firing  him." 

"All  right  .  .  I'll  take  the  job." 

Our  conference  over,  we  had  climbed  out  to  the  top  of  the  dam, 
slid  over,  and  were  now  standing  beneath.  The  water  galloped 
down  in  a  snowy  cataract  of  foam,  as  we  topped  off  our  swim  with 
the  heavy  "shower-bath"  that  was  like  a  massage  in  its  pummelling. 

MacGregor  good-naturedly  stayed  an  extra  week,  saying  he'd 
show  me  the  run  of  things.  Secretly  he  tried  to  teach  me  how  to 
cook.   .   . 

As  the  cooking  was  not  all  of  the  "nature"  order,  but  involved 
preparing  food  for  a  horde  of  people  we  called  "outsiders"  who 
were  employed  in  Barton's  publishing  plant,  I  would  have  to  pre- 
pare meat  and  bake  bread  and  make  tea  and  coffee.   .   . 

Barton  confessed  to  me  that  a  food-compromise  was  distasteful 
to  him.  But  he  could  not  coerce.  While  lecturing  about  the  coun- 
try it  was  often,  even  with  him,  "eat  beefsteaks  or  starve !" 

MacGregor  was  a  professional  Scotchman,  just  as  there  are  pro- 
fessional Irishmen,  Englishmen  and  professional  Southern  Gentlemen 
.  .  every  Scotchman  is  a  professional  Scotchman  .  .  but  there  is 
always  something  pleasant  and  poetic  about  his  being  so  ..  it  is 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  171 

not  as  it  is  with  the  others — whose  "professionalism"  generally  bears 
an  unpleasant  reek. 

MacGregor  had  sandy,  scanty  hair,  a  tiny  white  shadow  of  a 
moustache,  kindly,  weak  eyes,  a  forehead  prematurely  wrinkled  with 
minute,  horizontal  lines.  Burns  .  .  of  course  .  .  he  knew  and 
quoted  every  line  to  me.  And  Sentimental  Tommy  and  Tommy 
and  Grizel. 

In  a  week  I  was  left  in  full  possession  of  the  nature  restaurant. 

Barton  had  been  rendered  slightly  paring  and  mean,  in  matters 
of  money, — by  smooth  individuals  who  came  to  him,  glowing  with 
words  of  what  they  could  effect  for  him,  in  this  or  that  project — 
individuals  who  soon  decamped,  leaving  Barton  the  poorer,  except 
in  experience. 

In  return  he  had  to  retrench.  But  the  retrenchments  fell  in  the 
place  where  the  penny,  not  the  dollar,  la3^ 

He  practised  economy  on  me.  He  gave  me  only  ten  dollars  a 
week,  board  and  room  free,  as  cook;  and  also  I  was  to  wait  on  the 
diners,  as  well  as  prepare  the  meals. 

Nevertheless  the  fault  for  having  two  jobs  at  once  thrust  on 
me,  rested  partly  with  me:  when  he  asked  me  if  I  was  able  to  do 
both,  I  fell  into  a  foolish,  boasting  mood  and  said  "yes." 

INIacGregor  figured  out  my  menu  for  me  a  week  ahead,  the  day 
he  left:  "Anyhow,  you'll  only  last  a  week,"  he  joked. 

The  night  before  the  first  breakfast  I  lay  awake  all  night,  wor- 
rying .  .  hadn't  I  better  just  sneak  away  with  daylight?  .  .  no, 
I  must  return  to  ]Mt.  Hebron  in  the  fall.  Though  all  I  wanted  to 
return  for  was  to  show  the  school,  that,  in  spite  of  my  spindly  legs, 
I  could  win  my  "H"  in  track  athletics. 

I  must  make  good  at  this  job,  and  save  .  .  my  grandmother, 
who  had  sent  me  money  the  previous  year,  I  must  not  call  on  her 
again.  And  I  did  not  count  on  my  father  .  .  for  he  was  strenu- 
ously in  the  saddle  to  a  grass  widow,  the  one  who  had  lured  him  to 
change  boarding  houses,  and  she  was  devouring  his  meagre  sub- 
stance like  the  Scriptural  locust. 

That  first  breakfast  was  a  nightmare.  I  "practised  breakfast" 
from  three  o'clock  till  six  .  .  by  six  I  had  started  another  break- 
fast, and  by  seven,  after  having  spoiled  and  burned  much  food,  I 


172  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

was  tolerably  ready  for  customers  .  .  who  seemed,  at  that  hour, 
to  storm  the  place. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  detail.  In  three  days  I  was  through. 
And  I  had  my  first  fight  with  Barton. 

I  was  back  in  my  army  tent  once  more,  free,  with  my  Shelley, 
my  Keats,  my  manuscript.   .   . 

In  despair  of  ever  returning  to  Hebron,  once  more  I  lay  under 
starry  nights,  dreaming  poetry  and  comparing  myself  to  all  the 
Great  Dead.  .  . 

With  the  top  of  the  tent  pulled  back  to  let  the  stars  in,  I  lay 
beneath  the  gigantic,  marching  constellations  overhead — under  my 
mosquito  netting — and  wrote  poems  under  stress  of  great  inspira- 
tion .  .  at  times  it  seemed  that  Shelley  was  with  me  in  my  tent — 
a  slight,  grey  form  .   .   and  little,  valiant,  stocky  Keats,  too. 

After  my  quarrel  with  Barton,  he  tried  to  oust  me  from  that 
desirable  site  the  Bishop's  wife  had  turned  over  to  me  .  .  indeed, 
he  tried  to  persuade  me  to  leave  the  colony.     But  I  would  not  stir. 

There  was  a  young  fellow  in  the  "City"  named  Vinton.  .  .  Vinton 
was  the  strong  man  of  the  place.  He  spent  three  hours  every  morn- 
ing exercising,  in  minute  detail,  every  muscle  of  his  body  .  .  and 
he  had  developed  beautiful  muscles,  each  one  of  which  stood  out, 
like  a  turn  in  a  rope,  of  itself. 

Vinton  was  sent  to  oust  me,  by  force  if  need  be. 

I  really  was  afraid  of  him  when  he  strode  up  to  me,  as  I  lay  there 
reading  the  Revolt  of  Islam  again. 

With  a  big  voice  he  began  to  hint,  mysteriously,  that  it  would  be 
wise  for  me  to  clear  out.  I  showed  him  that  I  held  a  clear  title  and 
right  to  sojourn  there  till  Christmas,  if  I  chose  to,  as  the  bishop's 
wife  had  paid  for  the  site  till  that  time,  and  had  then  transferred 
the  use  of  the  location  to  me.  I  showed  him  her  letter  .  .  with 
the  Tallahassee  postmark. 

His  only  answer  was,  that  he  knew  nothing  about  that  .  .  that 
Barton  wanted  the  place,  and,  that  if  I  wouldn't  vacate  peaceably 
' — and  he  looked  me  in  the  eyes  like  some  great,  calm  animal. 

Though  my  heart  was  pounding  painfully,  against,  it  seemed,  the 


TRAMPING  ON  ilFE  173 

very  roof  of  my  mouth,  I  compelled  my  eyes  not  to  waver,  but  to 
look  fiercely  into  his.   .   . 

"Are  you  going  to  start  packing?" 

"No,  I  am  not  going  to  start  packing," 

"I  can  break  your  neck  with  one  twist,"  and  he  illustrated  that 
feat  with  a  turn  of  one  large  hand  in  the  air. 

He  came  slowly  in,  head  down,  as  if  to  pick  me  up  and  throw 
me  down. 

I  waited  till  he  was  close,  then  gave  him  an  upward  rip  with  all 
mv  might,  a  blow  on  the  forehead  that  made  the  blood  flow,  and 
staggered  him  with  consternation.  To  keep  myself  still  at  white 
heat,  I  showered  blows  on  him.     To  my  surprise,  he  fell  back. 

"Wait — wait,"  he  protested  in  a  small  voice,  "I — I  was  just  fool- 
ing." 

After  Vinton  left,  my  blood  still  pouring  through  my  veins  in 
a  triumphant  glow,  I  sat  on  the  ground  by  the  side  of  my  tent-floor 
and  composed  a  poem.   .   . 

That  afternoon  Barton's  office  boy  was  sent  to  me,  as  an  emis- 
sary of  peace. 

"The  boss  wants  to  see  you  in  his  office." 

"Tell  your  boss  that  my  office  is  down  here.  If  he  wants  to  see 
me  he  can  come  here." 

The  boy  scurried  away.  I  was  now  looked  upon  as  a  desperate 
man. 

And  I  was  happy.  I  sang  at  the  top  of  my  voice,  an  old  ballad 
about  Captain  John  Smith,  so  that  Barton  could  hear  it  through 
the  open  window  of  his  office.  .  . 

"And  the  little  papooses  dig  holes  in  the  sand.   .  . 
Vive  le  Capitaine  John!  .  .  ." 
I  leaped  into  the  lake,  without  even  my  gee-string  on,  and  swam 
far  out,  singing.  .  . 

Late  that  evening,  Barton  came  to  my  tent  .  .  very  gently  and 
sweetly  .  .  he  no  longer  called  me  John  or  Johnnie  .  .  I  was  now 
Mr.  Gregory.  He  asked  me,  if  he  rented  the  plot  back  from  me, 
would  I  go  in  peace?  I  replied,  no,  I  meant  to  stay  there  till  the 
middle  of  September,  when  the  fall  term  opened  at  Mt.  Hebron. 


174  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Then  he  asked  me,  would  I  just  join  forces  with  him, — since  we 
must  put  the  movement  above  personalities.  .  . 

We  had  a  long  talk  about  life  and  "Nature"  ideals.  The  man 
showed  all  his  soul,  all  his  struggles,  to  me.  And  I  saw  his  real 
greatness  and  was  moved  greatly.  And  I  informed  him  I  would 
antagonise  him  no  longer,  that,  though  I  would  not  give  up  the  de- 
sirable site,  otherwise,  I  would  help  him  all  I  could. 

Then  he  said  he  would  be  glad  to  have  me  stay,  and  we  shook 
hands  warmly,  the  moisture  of  feeling  shining  in  our  eyes. 

As  the  time  for  my  return  to  school  drew  near,  I  was  in  fine 
physical  condition,  better  than  ever  before  in  my  life.  I  was  still 
somewhat  thin,  but  now  it  could  be  called  slenderness,  not  thinness. 
And  I  was  surprised  at  the  laughing,  healthy,  sun-browned  look  of 
my  face. 

I  felt  a  confidence  in  myself  I  had  never  known  before.  .  . 

I  had  a  flirtation  with  a  pretty,  freckle-faced  girl.  She  worked 
in  Barton's  "factory,"  and  she  used  to  come  down  to  my  tent  where 
I  sat  reading,  with  only  my  trunks  on, — during  the  noon  hour, — 
and  ask  me  to  read  poetry  aloud  to  her.  And  I  read  Shelley.  She 
would  draw  shyly  closer  to  me,  sending  me  into  a  visible  tremour 
that  made  me  ashamed  of  myself. 

At  times,  as  we  read,  her  fair,  fine  hair  would  brush  my  cheek  and 
send  a  shiver  of  fire  through  me.  But  I  still  knew  nothing  a^^out 
women.     I  never  even  offered  to  kiss  her. 

But  when  she  was  away  from  me,  at  night  specially,  I  would  go 
into  long,  luxurious,  amorous  imaginations  over  her  and  the  pos- 
session of  her,  and  I  would  dream  of  loving  her,  and  of  having  a 
little  cottage  and  children.   .   . 

But  words  and  elegant,  burning  phrases  are  never  enough  for 
a  woman. 

In  a  week  I  noticed  her  going  by  on  the  arm  of  a  mill-hand. 

And,  broke  again,  I  wrote  to  my  grandmother  that  I  must  have 
fifty  dollars  to  get  back  to  school  on.  And,  somehow,  she  scraped 
it  together  and  sent  it  to  me.     My  first  impulse  was  to  be  ashamed 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  175 

of  myself  and  start  to  return  it.     Then  I  kept  it.     For,  after  all, 
it  was  for  poetry's  sake. 

On  the  train  to  Hebron,  as  I  walked  up  the  car  iao  my  seat,  health 
shining  in  my  smooth,  clear  face  and  skin,  the  women  and  girls 
gave  me  approving,  friendly  glances,  and  I  was  happy. 

A  summer  of  control  from  unhealthy  habits  had  done  this  for 
me,  a  summer  of  life,  naked,  in  the  open  air,  plus  exercise.  I  had 
learned  a  great  lesson.  To  Barton  I  owe  it  that  I  am  still  alive, 
%agorously  alive,  not  crawlingly  .  .  but  I  suffered  several  slumps 
before  I  attained  and  held  my  present  physique.  For  the  world  and 
life  afford  complications  not  found  in  "Perfection  City." 

The  school  hill  lay  before  my  eyes  again.  From  it  spread  on 
all  sides  the  wonderful  Connecticut  valley.  Up  and  down  the  paths 
to  the  dining  hall,  the  buildings  in  which  classes  were  held,  the 
Chapel  crowning  the  topmost  crest,  wandered  groups  of  boys  in 
their  absurd,  postage-stamp  caps,  their  peg-top  trousers,  their 
wide,  floppy  raglan  coats. 

I  was  a  senior  now.  At  first  my  change  in  bodily  build  and  bet- 
tered health  rendered  me  hardly  recognisable  to  my  friends. 

The  very  first  day  I  reached  Hebron  again  I  was  out  on  the  wide, 
oval  field,  lacing  around  the  track.  In  a  month  would  come  the 
big  track-meet  and  I  was  determined  this  time,  to  win  enough 
points  to  earn  me  my  "H." 

Principal  Stanton  sent  for  me,  the  second  day  after  my  arrival. 

"I  wanted  to  have  a  long  talk  with  you  before  you  got  settled, 
Gregory." 

His  steely,  blue  eyes  gleamed  through  his  gold-rimmed  eye- 
glasses. 

"Sit  down." 

And  we  had  a  talk  lasting  over  an  hour  .  .  about  religion  mainly. 
He  was  surprised  to  learn  that  I  knew  a  lot  about  the  early  Church 
fathers,  had  read  Newman,  and  understood  the  Oxford  contro- 
versy .  .  had  read  many  of  the  early  English  divines.   .   . 

"Gregory,"  he  cried,  putting  his  hand  on  my  knee,  "what  a 
power  for  God  you  would  be,  if  you  would  only  give  over  your  eccen- 


176  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

tricities  and  become  a  Christian  .  .  a  chap  with  your  magnetism — 
in  spite  of  your  folly ! " 

He  impressed  on  me  the  fact,  that,  now  I  was  a  senior,  more 
would  be  expected  of  me  .  .  that  the  younger  boys  would  look  up 
to  me,  as  they  did  to  all  seniors,  and  I  must  be  more  careful  of 
my  deportment  before  them  ,  .  my  general  conduct.   .   . 

He  asked  me  what  I  intended  making  of  myself. 

"A  poet !"  I  exclaimed. 

He  spread  his  hands  outward  with  a  gesture  of  despair. 

"Of  course,  one  can  write  poetry  if  necessary  .  .  but  what  career 
are  you  choosing?" 

"The  writing  of  poetry." 

"But,  my  dear  Gregory,  one  can't  make  a  living  by  that  .  .  and 
one  must  live." 

"Why  must  one  live?"  I  replied  fervently,  "did  Christ  ever  say 
'One  must  live'?" 

"Gregory,  you  are  impossible,"  laughed  Stanton  heartily,  "but 
we're  all  rather  fond  of  you  .  .  and  we  want  you  to  behave,  and 
try  to  graduate.  Though  we  can't  tell  just  what  you  might  do 
in  after-life  .  .  whether  you'll  turn  out  a  credit  to  the  School 
or  not." 

"Professor  Stanton,  I  have  a  favour  to  ask  of  you  before  I 
go,"  I  asked,  standing. 

"Yes?"  and  he  raised  his  eyebrows. 

*'I  want  to  know  if  I  can  have  that  room  alone,  over  the  platform, 
in  Recitation  Hall."  I 

"You'll  have  to  ask  Professor  Dunn  about  that  .  .  he  has  charge 
of  room-transfers  .  .  but  why  can't  you  room  as  the  other  students 
do?  .  .  I  don't  know  whether  it  is  good  for  you,  to  let  you  live 
by  yourself  .  .  you're  already  different  enough  from  the  other  j 
boys  .  .  what  you  need  is  more  human  companionship,  Gregory, 
not  less." 

"I  want  to  do  a  lot  of  writing.  I  want  to  be  alone  to  think.  I 
plan  to  read  Westcott  and  Hort's  Greek  New  Testament  all  through, 
again,  this  winter."  .  .  This  was  a  sop  to  his  religious  sentiment.  I 
related  how  I  had  first  read  the  New  Testament  in  the  Greek,  whUe 
on  a  cattle-boat,  in  the  China  Seas.  .  . 

"Gregory,  you're  quite  mad  .  .  but  you're  a  smooth  one,  tool" 
his  eyes  gleamed,  amused,  behind  his  glasses.  .  . 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  177 

"And  I  want  to  write  a  lot  of  poems  drawn  from  the  parables 
of  the  New  Testament" — though,  not  till  that  minute  had  such  an 
idea  entered  my  head.   .   . 


When  I  was  admitted  to  the  study  of  Professor  Dunn  and  sat 
down  waiting  for  him  among  his  antique  busts  and  rows  of  Latin 
books,  I  had  formulated  further  plans  to  procure  what  I  desired.  .  . 

He  came  in,  heavily  dignified,  like  a  dark,  stocky  Roman,  gro- 
tesque in  modern  dress,  lacking  the  toga. 

I  told  him  of  my  New  Testament  idea  .  .  and  added  to  it,  as  an 
afterthought,  that  I  also  wanted  to  prosecute  a  special  study  of 
the  lyrics  of  Horace.  Though  he  explained  to  me  that  Horace 
belonged  to  the  college  curriculum,  his  heart  expanded.  Horace 
was  his  favourite  poet — ^which,  of  course,  I  knew.   .  . 

I  got  my  room. 

I  borrowed  a  wheelbarrow  from  the  barn,  and  wheeled  my  trunk 
down  to  Recitation  Hall,  singing. 

•  ••••«• 

What  a  hypocrite  I  had  been !  But  I  had  obtained  what  I  sought 
■ — a  room  alone.  But  now  I  must,  in  truth,  study  the  Greek  Testa- 
ment and  Horace.   .   . 

I  figured  out  that  if  I  enrolled  for  several  extra  Bible  courses 
the  Faculty  would  be  easier  on  me  with  my  other  studies,  and  let 
me  cut  some  of  them  out  entirely. 
k  To  make  myself  even  more  "solid,"  I  gave  out  that  I  had  been 
"persuaded  to  Christianity  so  strongly,  of  a  sudden,  that  I  con- 
templated studying  for  the  ministry.  I  even  wrote  my  grandmother 
that  this  was  what  I  intended  to  do.  And  her  simple,  pious  letter 
in  return,  prayerful  with  thanks  to  God  for  my  conversion  so  signal 
— in  secret  cut  me  to  the  heart.  .  . 

But  it  gave  me  a  temporary  pleasure,  now,  to  be  looked  upon  as 
"safe."  To  be  openly  welcomed  at  prayer-meetings  .  .  I  acted, 
how  I  acted,  the  ardent  convert  .  .  and  how  frightened  I  was,  at 
myself,  to  find  that,  at  times,  I  believed  that  I  believed !  .  . 

My  former  back-sliding  was  forgiven  me. 

And  the  passage  of  Tennyson  about  "one  honest  doubt"  being 
more  than  half  the  creeds,  was  quoted  in  my  favour. 


178  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Field-day!  .  . 

•  •••••• 

I  entered  for  the  two-mile,  to  be  run  off  in  the  morning  .  .  for 
the  half-mile,  the  first  thing  in  the  afternoon  .  .  the  mile,  which 
was  to  be  the  last  event,  excepting  the  hammer-throw.  My  class, 
in  a  body,  had  urged  me  to  enter  for  all  the  "events"  I  could  .  . 
when  the  delegation  came,  I  welcomed  them,  with  gratified  self- 
importance,  to  my  solitary  room.  I  invited  them  in,  and  they 
sat  about  .  .  on  my  single  chair  .  .  my  bed  .  .  the  floor.  .  . 

"You  see,  Gregory,  if  you  win  two  of  these  races,  we'll  get  the 
banner  that  goes  to  the  class  that  makes  the  greatest  number  of 
points  .  .  you  must  do  it  for  us  .  .  we  have  never  yet  won  the  banner, 
and  this  is  our  last  chance." 

They  left,  solemnly  shaking  my  hand,  as  over  a  matter  of  vast 
importance.  .  . 

Hurrying  into  my  track  suit,  I  went  out  to  the  Oval.  It  was 
three  days  before  the  meet. 

Dunn  was  there,  with  several  others,  measuring  out  distances 
and  chalking  lanes. 

With  all  the  delicate  joy  of  an  aesthete  I  took  my  slim,  spiked 
running  shoes.  I  patted  them  with  affection  as  I  pushed  my  feet 
into  them.     I  removed  the  corks  from  the  shining  spikes.   .   . 

I  struck  out  with  long,  low-running,  greyhound  strides  .  .  around 
and  around  .  .  the  wind  streamed  by  me.   .   . 

I  knew  I  was  being  watched  admiringly.  I  could  see  it  out  of 
the  tail  of  my  eyes.  So  I  threw  forward  in  a  final  sprint,  that 
brought  me  up,  my  eyes  stinging  with  the  salt  of  sweat,  my  legs 
aching  .   .  my  chest  heaving.   .  . 

"Good  boy,"  complimented  Dunn,  coming  up  to  me,  and  patting 
me  on  the  back  .  .  Gregory,  I'm  for  you.  I'm  so  glad  you've  come 
out  a  clean,  fine,  clear-cut  Christian." 

•  •••••• 

For  the  two-mile,  the  half,  and  the  mile,  each — a  single  athlete 
was  training,  his  heart  set  on  the  record.  It  seemed  impossible 
that  I  should  win  all  three  races.     Yet  I  did. 

I  was  all  nerves  and  sinews  for  the  two-mile.  The  night  before  I 
had  lain  awake.  I  could  not  sleep  so  I  read  a  poor  translation  of 
the  odes  of  Pindar.    But  behind  the  bad  verbiage  of  the  translator, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  179 

I  fed  on  the  shining  spirit  of  the  poetry.     With  Pindar's  music  in 
me,  I  was  ready  for  the  two-mile. 


Tensely  we  leaned  forward,  at  the  scratch.  I  had  my  plan  of 
campaign  evolved.  I  would  leap  to  the  fore,  at  the  crack  of  the 
pistol,  set  a  terrific  pace,  sprint  the  first  quarter,  and  then  settle  into 
my  long,  steady  stride,  and  trust  to  my  good  lung  power  .  .  for  I 
had  paid  special  attention  to  my  lung-development,  at  "Perfection 
City." 

I  felt  a  melting  fire  of  nervousness  running  through  my  body,  a 
weakness. 

I  bowed  my  face  in  my  hands  and  prayed  .  .  both  to  Christ  and 
to  Apollo  .  .  in  deadly  seriousness  .  .  perhaps  all  the  gods  really 
were.   .   . 

The  gun  cracked.  Off  I  leapt,  in  the  lead  .  .  in  the  first  lap  the 
field  fell  behind. 

"Steady,  Gregory,  steady!"  advised  Dunn,  in  a  low  voice,  as  I 
flashed  into  the  second.   .  . 

I  thought  I  had  distanced  everybody  .  .  but  it  chilled  me  to  hear 
the  soft  swish,  swish  of  another  runner  .  .  glancing  rapidly  behind, 
I  saw  a  swarthy  lad,  a  fellow  with  a  mop  of  wiry,  black  hair,  whom 
we  called  "The  Hick"  (for  he  had  never  been  anywhere  but  on  a 
farm) — going  stride  for  stride,  right  in  my  steps,  just  avoiding 
my  heels.   .   . 

Run  as  I  might,  I  couldn't  shake  him  off.  .  . 

Every  time  I  swept  by,  the  crowd  would  set  up  a  shout  .  .  but 
now  they  were  encouraging  "The  hick"  more  than  me.  This  made 
me  furious,  hurt  my  egotism.  My  lungs  were  burning  with  effort  .  . 
I  threw  out  into  a  longer  stride.  I  glanced  back  again.  Still  the 
chap  was  lumbering  along  .  .  but  easily,  so  easily  .  .  almost  without 
an  effort.  .  . 

"Good  God,  am  I  going  to  be  beaten?"  I  sensed  a  terrific 
sprinting-power  in  the  following,  chunky  body  of  my  antagonist. 

There  were  only  two  more  laps  .  .  the  rest  of  the  field  were  a  lap 
and  a  half  behind,  fighting  for  third  place  amongst  themselves  .  . 
jeered  at  by  the  instinctive  cruelty  of  the  onlookers.   .   . 

My  ears  perceived  a  cessation  of  the  following  swish,  the  tread. 
Simultaneously  I  heard  a  great  shout  go  up.    I  dared  not  look  back, 


180  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

however,  to  see  what  was  happening — I  threw  myself  forward  at 
that  shout,  fearing  the  worst,  and  ran  myself  blind.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

"Take  it  easy,  you  have  it!" 
"Shut  up!  he's  after  the  record." 

The  shrill  screaming  of  the  girls  who  had  come  over,  in  a  white, 
linen-starched  wagon  load,  from  Fairfield,  gave  me  my  last  spurt. 
Expecting  every  moment  to  hear  my  antagonist  grind  past  me,  on 
the  cinders,  I  sped  up  the  home-stretch. 

The  air  was  swimming  in  a  gold  mist.  I  felt  arms  under  mine, 
and  I  was  carried  off  to  the  senior  tent,  by  my  class-mates.  .  . 

Yet  I  am  convinced  that  I  would  have  been  beaten,  if  my  rival  had 
not  had  the  string  that  held  his  trunks  up,  break.  He  had  sunk 
down  on  the  track,  when  they  had  fallen,  not  to  show  his  naked- 
ness .  .  and,  pulling  them  up,  and  holding  them,  amid  great  laughter, 
he  had  still  won  second  ribbon. 

I  won  the  second  race — the  half-mile,  without  the  humour  of  such 
a  fateful  intervention.  It  was  my  winning  of  the  first  that  won 
me  the  second.  I  had  just  equalled  the  two-mile  record,  in  the 
first.  .  . 

I  ran  that  half,  blindly,  like  a  mad  man,  I  was  drunk  with  joy 
over  my  popularity  .  .  for  when  I  had  gone  into  the  big  dining  room 
for  lunch,  all  the  boys  had  shouted  and  cheered  and  roared,  and 
pounded  the  dishes  with  their  knives. 

*'Now,  Gregory,  you've  just  got  to  take  the  mile  away  from 
Learoyd  .  .  he's  a  junior  .  .  you've  just  got  to!  .  .  besides,  if  you 
don't  .  .  there's  Flammer  has  lost  the  broad  jump  .  .  and  we  won't 
win  the  class  banner  after  all." 

Learoyd  was  a  smallish,  golden-faced,  downy-headed  boy  .  . 
almost  an  albino.  .  .  I  had  seen  him  run  .  .  he  ran  low  to  the  ground, 
in  flashes,  Hke  some  sort  of  shore-bird. 

In  the  class-tent,  alone.  Dunn  had  driven  my  class  out,  where 
they  had  been  massaging  and  kneading  my  legs  .  .  which  trembled 
and  tottered  under  me,  from  the  excessive  use  they  had  already 
undergone. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  181 

I  sat  down  and  put  my  head  between  my  knees,  and  groaned. 
Then  I  straightened  out  my  right  leg  and  rubbed  it,  because  a  cramp 
was  knotting  it. 

"Hello,  Gregory !" 

The  tent-flap  opened.     The  athletic  director  poked  his  head  in. 

"Come  on,  Gregory,  we're  waiting  for  you." 

"Wait  a  minute,  Smythe  .  .  I  want  to  pray,"  I  replied  simply. 
Reverently  he  withdrew  .  .  impressed  .  .  awed.  .  . 

I  flung  mj^self  on  my  face. 

*'Look  here,  God,  I'll  really  believe  in  you,  if  you  give  me  this 
last  race  .  .  it  will  be  a  miracle,  God,  if  you  do  this  for  me,  and 
I  will  believe  in  your  Bible,  despite  my  common  sense  .  .  despite 
history  .  .  despite  Huxley  and  Voltaire,"  then,  going  as  far  as  I 
could —  "yes,  and  despite  Shelley  .  .  dear  God,  dear  Christ,  please 
do  what  I  have  asked." 

My  hand  struck  on  a  bottle  of  witch  hazel  as  I  rose.  Impul- 
sively, I  drank  off  half  the  contents.  It  sent  a  warmth  through 
me.     I  straightened  up,  invigorated. 

**Come  on,  Gregory  .  .  what's  the  matter?"  it  was  Dunn,  protest- 
ing, "we'll  have  to  run  off  the  mile  without  you,  if  you  don't  come." 

"I'm  ready  .  .  I'm  coming." 


All  that  I  had  in  my  head,  when  the  pistol  cracked,  was  to  run!  .  . 
all  I  felt  about  me  was  only  a  pair  of  mad  legs. 

I  licked  out,  neither  seeing  nor  caring  .  .  almost  feeling  my  way 
along  the  rim  of  the  track  with  my  toes,  as  I  ran — as  if  I  had 
racing  eyes  in  them.  There  was  a  continuous  roar  that  rose  and 
fell  like  the  sea.  But  I  neither  saw  nor  heeded.  I  just  ran  and 
ran. 

On  the  home-stretch  a  fellow  came  breast  to  breast  with  me. 
It  was  Learoyd  .  .  running  low  like  a  swallow  skimming  the  ground. 
But  it  didn't  worry  me.  I  was  calm,  just  floating  along,  it  seemed 
to  me. 

I  saw  Dunn  throwing  his  camera  into  the  air,  in  the  forefront 
of  the  seething  crowd.  He  was  crying  for  me  to  come  on.  The 
camera  fell  in  a  smashed  heap,  unregarded. 

Barely,  with  my  chest  flung  out,  I  took  the  tape  .  .  trailing  off  .  . 
I  ran  half  a  lap  more,  with  my  class  leaping  grotesquely  and  shout- 


182  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

ing,  streaming  across  field  after  me — before  I  had  my  senses  back 
again,  and  realised  that  the  race  was  over. 

"Did  I  win?   Did  I  win?   Did  I  win?"     I  asked  again  and  again. 

"Yes,  you  won!" 

"I  was  being  carried  about  on  their  shoulders. 

*'A  little  more,  and  we'd  have  to  take  you  over  to  the  hospital," 
commented  Smythe,  as  he  looked  at  me,  while  I  lay  prone  on  my 
back,  resting,  under  shelter  of  the  tent. 

"Who — ^who  used  up  all  this  witch-hazel?"  he  asked  of  the 
rubbers.  .  . 

I  hid  my  face  in  the  grass,  pretending  to  groan  from  the  strain 
I  had  just  undergone.  Instead,  I  was  smothering  a  laugh  at  my- 
self .  .   at  the  school  .   .   at  all  things.   .   . 

"God  and  witch-hazel,"  I  wanted  to  shout  hysterically,  "hurrah 
for  God  and  witch-hazel." 

Then  I  rose  shakily  to  my  feet,  and,  flinging  myself  loose  from 
those  who  offered  to  help  me,  I  ran  at  a  good  clip,  in  my  sneakers, 
dangling  my  running  shoes  affectionately — to  my  solitary  room  .  . 
with  a  bearing  that  boasted,  "why,  I  could  run  all  those  three  races 
over  again,  one  right  after  the  other,  right  now  .  .  no,  I'm  not 
tired  .  .  not  the  least  bit  tired!" 

That  night,  in  the  crowded  dining  hall,  the  ovation  for  me  was 
tremendous. 

"I'll  smash  life  just  like  those  races,"  I  boasted,  in  my  heart. 

But  my  triumph  and  eminence  were  not  to  last  long. 

To  be  looked  up  to  at  Mt.  Hebron  you  had  to  lead  a  distasteful, 
colourless  life  of  hypocrisy  and  piety  such  as  I  have  seldom  seen 
anjrvvhere  before.  Under  cover  of  their  primitive  Christianity  I 
never  found  more  pettiness.  First,  you  prayed  and  hymn-sung 
yourself  into  favour,  and  then  indulged  in  sanctimonious  intrigue 
to  keep  yourself  where  you  had  arrived. 

I  could  not  stand  my  half  self-hypnotised  hypocrisy  any  longer. 
A  spirit  of  mischief  and  horseplay  awoke  in  me,  I  perpetrated  a 
hundred  misdemeanours,  most  of  them  unpunishable  elsewhere,  but 
of  serious  import  in  schools  and  barracks,  where  discipline  is  to 
be  maintained.  I  stayed  out  of  bounds  late  at  night  .  .  I  cut  classes 
continually.  I  visited  Fairfield  .  .  and  a  factory  town  further 
south,  where  I  lounged  about  the  streets  all  day,  talking  with  people. 

Professor  Stanton,  not  to  my  surprise,  sent  for  me  again. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  183 

Yet  I  was  amazed  at  what  he  knew  about  me,  amazed,  too,  to 
discover  the  extent  of  the  school's  comphcated  system  of  pious 
espionage  that  checked  up  the  least  move  of  every  student. 

Stanton  brought  out  a  sheet  of  paper  with  dates  and  facts  of 
my  misbehaviour  that  could  not  be  controverted.  .  . 

"So  we  will  have  to  ask  you  to  withdraw  from  the  school,  unless 
you  right-about-face  .  .  otherwise,  we  have  had  enough  of  you  .  . 
in  fact,  if  it  had  not  been  for  your  great  promise — your 
talents ! " 

I  waved  the  compliment  aside  rather  wearily. 

"I  think  that  if  this  school  has  had  enough  of  me,  I  have  had  about 
enough  of  the  school." 

I  expressed,  in  plain  terms,  my  opinion  of  their  espionage  system. 

"Your  omnipotent  God  must  be  hard  put  to  it  when  He  has  to 
rely  on  the  help  of  such  sneakiness  to  keep  His  Book  (and  I  couldn't 
help  laughing  at  the  literary  turn  I  gave  to  my  denunciation) 
before  the  public!" 

Stanton's  eyes  flamed  behind  their  glasses. 

"Gregory,  I  shall  have  to  ask  you  to  leave  the  Hill  as  soon  as 
you  can  get  your  things  together,"  he  shouted. 

" — ^which  can  hardly  be  soon  enough  for  me,"  I  replied. 

"Come,  my  boy,"  continued  Stanton,  as  if  ashamed  at  himself 
for  his  outburst,  and  putting  his  hand  on  my  shoulder,  "you're  a 
good  sort  of  boy,  after  all  .  .  you  have  so  much  in  you,  so  much 
energy  and  power  .  .  why  don't  you  put  it  to  right  uses?  .  .  after 
your  father  has  made  such  sacrifices  for  you,  I  hate  to  see  you 
run  off  to  a  ravelled  edge  like  this. 

"Even  yet,  if  you'll  only  promise  to  behave  and  preserve  a  proper 
dignity  in  the  presence  of  the  other  students — even  yet  we  would 
be  glad  to  have  you  stay  and  graduate  .  .  and  we  might  be  able  to 
procure  you  a  scholarship  at  Harvard  or  Princeton  or  Yale  or 
Brown.  Lang  says  you  put  yourself  into  the  spirit  of  Homer  like 
an  old  Greek,  always  doing  more  work  than  the  requirements, — and 
Dunn  says,  that  you  show  him  things  in  Vergil  that  he  never  saw 
before." 

Moved,  I  shook  my  head  sadly.  I  hated  myself  for  liking  these 
people. 

"If  you  mean  that  I  should  be  like  other  people  .  .  I  just  can't  .  . 
it's  neither  pose  nor  affectation."     (He  had  intimated  that  some  of 


184  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  professors  alleged  that  as  the  core  of  the  trouble.)      "I  guess 
I  don't  belong  here  .  .  yes,  it  would  be  better  for  me  to  go  away  !*' 

That  night,  unobserved,  I  stole  into  the  chapel  that  stood  on  the 
crest  of  the  hill,  against  the  infinite  stars. 

I  spent  nearly  all  the  night  in  the  chapel,  alone.  The  place  was 
full  of  things.  I  felt  there  all  the  gods  that  ever  were  worshipped  .  . 
and  all  the  great  spirits  of  mankind.  And  I  perceived  fully  how 
silly,  wealc,  grotesque,  and  vain  I  was ;  and  yet,  how  big  and  won- 
derful, it  would  be  to  swim  counter,  as  I  meant,  to  the  huge,  swollen, 
successful  currents  of  the  commercial,  bourgeois  practicality  of 
present-day  America. 

I  pinned  up  a  sign  on  the  bulletin  board  in  the  hall,  in  rhyme, 
announcing,  that,  that  afternoon,  at  four  o'clock,  John  Gregory 
would  hold  an  auction  of  his  books  of  poetry. 

My  room  was  crowded  with  amused  students.  I  mounted  the 
table,  like  an  auctioneer,  while  they  sat  on  my  cot  and  on  the  floor, 
and  crowded  the  door. 

At  first  the  boys  jeered  and  pushed.  But  when  I  started  selling 
my  copy  of  Byron  and  telling  about  his  life,  they  fell  into  a  quiet, 
and  listened.  After  I  had  made  that  talk,  they  clapped  me.  Byron 
Went  for  a  dollar,  fetching  the  largest  price.  I  sold  my  Shelley, 
my  Blake,  my  Herrick,  my  Marvell,  my  Milton  .  .  all.  .  . 

My  Keats  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  sell.  I  kept  that  like  a 
treasure.     What  I  could  not  sell  I  gave  away. 

My  entire  capital  was  ten  dollars  .  .  one  suit  of  clothes  .  .  a  change 
of  underwear  .  .  two  shirts.  I  discarded  my  trunk  and  crammed 
what  little  I  owned  into  my  battered  suitcase. 

That  night,  the  story  of  my  dismissal  from  school  having  trav- 
elled about  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  tale  of  my  poets'  auction 
— the  boys  cheered  me,  as  I  came  into  the  dining  hall — cheered 
me  partly  affectionately,  partly  derisively. 

In  the  morning  mail  I  received  a  letter  from  the  New  York  Inde- 
pendent,  a  weekly  literary  magazine.  Dr.  Ward,  the  editor,  informed 
me  that  I  possessed  genuine  poetic  promise,  and  he  was  taking  two  of 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  185 

the  poems  I  had  recently  submitted  to  him,  for  publication  in  his 
magazine. 

Like  the  vagrant  I  was,  I  considered  myself  indefinitely  fixed, 
with  that  ten  dollars.  I  went  to  Boston  .  .  hung  about  the  library 
and  the  waterfront  .  .  stayed  in  cheap  lodging  houses  for  a  few 
days — and  found  myself  on  the  tramp  again. 

I  freighted  it  to  New  York,  where  I  landed,  grimy  and  full  of 
coal-dust.     And  I  sought  out  my  uncle  who  lived  in  the  Bronx. 

I  appeared,  opportunely,  around  supper  time.  I  asked  him  if 
he  was  not  glad  to  see  me.  He  grimaced  a  yes,  but  wished  that  I 
would  stop  tramping  about  and  fit  in,  in  life,  somewhere.  .  .  He 
observed  that  my  shirt  was  filthy  and  that  I  must  take  a  bath  imme- 
diately and  put  on  a  clean  one  of  his. 

In  Boston  I  had  ditched  everything  but  the  clothes  I  wore  .  , 
and  my  suit  was  wrecked  with  hard  usage. 

"Get  work  at  anything,"  advised  my  Uncle  Jim,  "and  save  up  till 
you  can  rig  yourself  out  new.  You'll  never  accomplish  anything 
looking  the  way  you  do.  Your  editor  at  the  Independent  will  not 
be  impressed  and  think  it  romantic,  if  you  go  to  see  him  the  way 
you  are  .  .  ragged  poets  are  out  of  date.   " 

At  "Perfection  City"  I  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  boy,  whom, 
curiously  enough,  I  have  left  out  of  that  part  of  the  narrative  that 
has  to  deal  with  the  Nature  Colony.  He  was  a  millionaire's  son: 
his  father,  a  friend  of  Barton's,  had  sent  him  out  to  "Perfection 
City"  with  a  tutor.  His  name  was  Milton  Saunders.  He  was  a  fine, 
generous  lad,  but  open  as  the  weather  to  every  influence  .  .  espe- 
cially to  any  which  was  not  for  his  good. 

One  morning  I  saw  him  actually  remove  his  own  shoes  and  give 
them  to  a  passing  tramp  who  needed  them  worse  than  he. 

"That's  nothing,  dad's  money  will  be  sufficient  to  buy  me  a  new 
pair,"  he  explained,  going  back  to  his  tent,  in  his  bare  feet,  his 
socks  in  his  hand — to  put  on  his  sneakers  while  he  hastened  to 
the  shoe  store  in  Andersonville. 

•  •••••« 

Milton  had  urged  me  to  be  sure  to  come  and  see  him  if  I  chanced 
to  be  in  New  York. 


186  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  now  called  him  on  the  telephone  and  was  cordially  invited  to 
visit  him,  and  that,  immediately. 

The  servants  eyed  me  suspiciously  and  sent  me  up  by  the  trades- 
men's elevator.  Milton  flew  into  a  fury  over  it.  His  friend  was  his 
friend,  no  matter  how  he  was  dressed — he  wanted  them  to  remember 
that,  in  the  future! 

He  brought  out  a  bottle  of  wine,  had  a  fine  luncheon  set  before 
me.  I  went  for  the  food,  but  pushed  the  wine  aside.  He  drank  the 
bottle  himself.  I  was  still,  for  my  part,  clinging  to  shreds  of  what 
I  had  learned  at  "Perfection  City."  .  . 

He  rushed  me  to  his  tailor.  I  had  told  him  of  my  first  poems' 
being  accepted. 

"Of  course,  you  must  be  better  dressed  when  you  go  to  see  the 
editor." 

The  tailor  looked  me  over,  in  whimsical  astonishment.  He  vowed 
that  he  could  not  have  a  suit  ready  for  me  by  ten  the  next  morning, 
as  Milton  was  ordering. 

"Then  you  have  a  suit  here  for  me  about  ready." 

"It  is  ready  now." 

"Alter  it  immediately  to  fit  Mr.  Gregory  .  .  we're  about  the  same 
height." 

The  tailor  said  that  could  be  done. 

For  the  rest  of  the  day  Milton  and  I  peregrinated  from  one  saloon 
back-room  to  another  .  .  in  each  of  which  the  boy  seemed  to  be  well 
known.  He  drank  liquor  while  I  imbibed  soft  drinks  .  .  the  result 
was  better  for  him  than  for  me.  I  soon  had  the  stomach-ache, 
while  he  only  seemed  a  little  over-exhilarated. 

At  his  door-step  he  shoved  a  ten  dollar  bill  into  my  hand.  I 
demurred,  but  accepted  it. 

"I'd  hand  you  more,"  he  apologised,  "but  the  Old  Man  never  lets 
me  have  any  more  than  just  so  much  at  a  time  .  .  says  I  waste  it 
anyhow  .  .  but  I  manage  to  do  a  lot  of  charging,"  he  chuckled. 

"Have  you  a  place  to  stay  to-night.?" 

*'Yes  .  .  I  have  an  uncle  who  lives  uptown." 

When  I  showed  up  at  my  uncle's,  that  night,  I  showed  him  my 
new  rig-out,  and  explained  to  him  how  I  came  into  possession  of  it. 
But  he  did  not  accept  my  explanation.  Instead,  he  shook  his  head 
in  mournful  dubiousness  .  .  indicating  that  he  doubted  my  story, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  187 

and  insinuating  that  I  had  not  come  by  my  suit  honestly ;  as  well  as 
by  the  new  dress  suitcase  Saunders  had  presented  me  with,  and  the 
shirts  and  underclothing. 

"God  knows  where  you'll  end  up,  Johnny." 

After  supper  Uncle  Jim  grew  restive  again,  and  he  came  out 
frankly  with  the  declaration  that  he  did  not  want  me  to  stay  over- 
night in  the  house,  but  to  pack  on  out  to  Haberford  to  my  father  .  . 
or,  since  I  must  stay  in  town  to  see  my  editor  (again  that  faint, 
dubious  smile),  I  might  stay  the  night  at  a  Mills  Hotel  .  .  since 
my  rich  friend  had  given  me  money,  too  .  .  besides  my  aunt  was 
not  so  very  strong  and  I  put  a  strain  on  her. 

At  the  Mills  Hotel  I  was  perched  in  a  cell-like  corner  room,  high 
up.  The  room  smelt  antiseptic.  Nearby,  Broadway  roared  and 
spread  in  wavering  blazons  of  theatric  gold.  I  looked  down  upon 
it,  dreaming  of  my  future  fame,  my  great  poetic  and  literary 
career  .  .  my  plays  that  would  some  day  be  announced  down  there, 
in  great  shining  sign-letters. 

The  sound  of  an  employee's  beating  with  a  heavy  stick,  from 
door  to  iron  door,  to  wake  up  all  the  Mills  Hotel  patrons,  bestirred 
me  at  an  early  hour. 

I  meditated  my  next  move,  and  now  resolved  on  another  try  at 
community  life.  .  .  The  Eos  Artwork  Studios,  founded  in  the  little 
New  York  State  town  of  Eos,  by  the  celebrated  eccentric  author 
and  lecturer,  Roderick  Spalton. 

I  was  in  such  impatience  to  reach  Eos  that  I  did  not  cross  over 
to  Haberford,  to  drop  in  on  my  father.  I  feared  also  that  my  leav- 
ing school  the  second  time,  "under  a  cloud,"  would  not  win  me  an 
enthusiastic  welcome  from  him. 

By  nightfall  I  was  well  on  my  way  to  Eos,  sitting  in  an  empty 
box-car.  I  had  with  me  my  new  clothes — which  I  wore — and  my 
suitcase,  a  foolish  way  to  tramp.  But  I  thought  I  might  as  well 
appear  before  Roderick  Spalton  with  a  little  more  "presence"  than 
usual.     For  I  intended  spending  some  time  in  his  community. 

Characteristically,  I  had  gone  to  the  office  of  the  Independent^ 
had  not  found  the  editor  in,  that  morning,  and  had  chafed  at  the 


188  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

idea  of  waiting  till  the  afternoon,  when  I  might  have  had  a  fruitful 
talk  with  a  man  who  was  interested  in  the  one  real  thing  in  my 
life — my  poetry. 

I  reached  Rochester  safely.  It  was  on  the  stretch  to  Buffalo  that 
I  paid  dearly  for  being  well-dressed  and  carrying  a  suitcase  .  .  as 
I  lay  asleep  on  the  floor  of  the  box-car  I  was  set  upon  by  three 
tramps,  who  pinioned  my  arms  and  legs  before  I  was  even  fully 
awake.  I  was  forced  to  strip  off  my  clothes,  after  wrestling  and 
fighting  as  hard  as  I  could.  I  floated  off  into  the  stars  from  a  blow 
on  the  head.  .  . 

When  I  came  to,  I  was  trembling  violently  both  with  cold  and 
from  the  nervous  shock.  My  assailants  had  made  off  with  my  suit- 
case. .  I  was  in  nothing  but  my  B.  V.  D.'s  and  shirt.  Even  my  Keats 
had  been  stolen.  But  beside  me  I  found  the  ragged,  cast-off  suit 
of  one  of  the  tramps  .  .  and  my  razor,  which  had  dropped  out  of 
my  coat  pocket,  while  the  tramp  had  changed  clothes,  and  not  been 
noticed.     Gingerly,  I  put  on  the  ragged  suit.  .  . 

I  stood  in  front  of  the  Eos  Artwork  Studios. 

I  saw  a  boy  coming  down  the  path  from  one  of  the  buildings. 

'*Would  you  tell  me  please  where  I  can  find  the  Master.'"'  I  asked, 
reverently. 

The  boy  gave  me  a  long  stare. 

"Oh,  you  mean  Mr.  Spalton?" 

"Yes." 

*'That's  him  .  .  there  .  .  choppin'  wood." 

There  was  a  young  man  and  an  older  one,  both  chopping  wood, 
in  the  back  of  a  building,  but  in  fairly  open  view. 

I  walked  to  where  they  worked  with  both  inward  and  outward 
trepidation,  for,  to  me,  Spalton  was  one  of  the  world's  great  men. 

Just  as  I  reached  the  spot,  the  younger  of  the  two  threw  down 
his  axe. 

**So  long,  Dad!  now  I'll  go  into  the  shop  and  tend  to  those 
letters." 

I  stood  in  the  presence  of  the  great  Roderick  Spalton  himself, 
the  man  who,  in  his  Brief  Visits  to  the  Homes  of  Famous  Folk,  had 
written  more  meatily  and  wisely  than  any  American  author  since 
Emerson  .  .  the  man  whose  magazine  called  The  Dawn,  had  ren- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  189 

dered  him  an  object  of  almost  religious  veneration  and  worship  to 
thousands  of  Americans  whose  spirits  reached  for  something  more 
than  the  mere  piling  of  dollars  one  on  the  other.  .  . 

I  stood  before  him,  visibly  overwhelmed.  It  was  evident  that  my 
silent  hero-worship  was  sweet  to  him.  He  bespoke  me  gently  and 
courteously. 

"So  you  want  to  become  an  Eoite.-"' 

"Yes,"  I  whispered,  bending  my  gaze  humbly  before  his. 

"And  what  is  your  name,  my  dear  boy." 

"John   Gregory,   Master!" 

"What  have  you  brought  with  you?  where  is   your  baggage?" 

"I — I  lost  my  baggage  .  .  all  I  have  with  me  is  a-a  r-razor." 

He  leaned  his  head  back  and  laughed  joyously.  His  lambent 
brown  eyes  glowed  with  humour.     I  liked  the  man. 

"Yes,  we'll  give  you  a  job — ^Razorre!"  he  assured  me,  calling  me 
by  the  nickname  which  clung  to  me  during  my  stay.   .  . 

"Take  that  axe  and  show  me  what  you  can  do." 

I  caught  up  the  axe  and  fell  to  with  enthusiasm.  The  gospel 
of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  labour  that  he  preached  thrilled  in 
me.     It  was  the  first  time  I  ever  enjoyed  working.  .  . 

As  we  worked  the  Master  talked  .  .  talked  with  me  as  if  he  had 
known  me  for  years — as  if  I,  too,  were  Somebody. 

There  was  nothing  he  did  not  discuss,  in  memorable  phrase  and 
trenchant,  clever  epigram.  For  he  s«.w  that  I  believed  in  him, 
worshipped  whole-heartedly  at  his  shrine  of  genius,  and  he  gave 
me,  in  return,  of  his  best.  For  the  first  time  I  saw  what  human 
language  is  for.  I  thought  of  Goethe  at  Weimar  .  .  Wilde's  clever 
conversation  in  London.  .  . 

Never  since  did  I  see  the  real  man,  Spalton,  as  I  saw  him  then, 
the  man  he  might  always  have  been,  if  he  had  had  an  old-world 
environment,  instead  of  the  environment  of  modern,  commercial 
America — the  spirit  of  which  finally  claimed  him,  as  he  grew  more 
successful.  .  . 

Modern,  commercial  America — where  we  proudly  make  a  boast  of 
lack  of  culture,  and  where  artistic  and  aesthetic  feeling,  if  freely 
expressed,  makes  one's  hearers  more  likely  than  not,  at  once  uneasy 
and  restive. 

That  night,  at  supper,  I  caught  my  first  glimpse  of  the  Eoites 


190  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

in  a  body.  The  contrast  between  them  and  my  school-folk  was 
agreeably  different.  I  found  among  them  an  atmosphere  of  good- 
natured  greeting  and  raillery,  that  sped  from  table  to  table.  And 
when  Spalton  strode  in,  with  his  bold,  swinging  gait  (it  seemed  that 
he  had  just  returned  from  a  lecture  in  a  distant  city  early  that 
afternoon),  there  was  cheering  and  clapping. 

Guests  and  workers  joined  together  in  the  same  dining  hall,  with 
no  distinctive  division.  .  .  I  sat  next  to  Spalton's  table,  and  a  warm 
glow  of  pleasure  swept  through  me  when  he  sent  me  a  pleasant  nod. 

"Hello,  Razorre,"  he  had  greeted  me;  then  he  had  turned  to  the 
group  at  his  table  and  told  them  about  me,  I  could  see  by  their 
glances — but  in  a  pleasant  way. 

•  •  •  •  ^  •  • 

The  next  morning  I  was  at  work  in  the  bindery,  smearing  glue 
on  the  backs  of  unbound  books.  My  wage  was  three  dollars  a 
week  and  "found,"  as  they  say  in  the  West.  Not  much,  but  what 
did  it  matter?  There  was  a  fine  library  of  the  world's  classics, 
including  all  the  liberal  and  revolutionary  books  that  I  had  heard 
about,  but  which  I  could  never  obtain  at  the  libraries  .  .  and  there 
were,  as  associates  and  companions,  many  people,  who,  if  extremely 
eccentric,  were,  nevertheless,  alive  and  alert  and  interested  in  all 
the  beautiful  things  Genius  has  created  in  Art  and  Song.   .   . 

Derelicts,  freaks,  "nuts"  .  .  with  poses  that  outnumbered  the 
silver  eyes  in  the  peacock's  tail  in  multitude  .  .  and  yet  there  was 
to  be  found  in  them  a  sincerity,  a  fineness,  and  a  genuine  feeling 
for  humanity  that  "regular"  folks  never  achieve — perhaps  because 
of  their  very  "regularness." 

Here,  at  last,  I  had  found  another  environment  where  I  could 
"let  loose"  to  the  limit  .  .  which  I  began  to  do.  .  . 

In  the  first  place,  there  was  the  matter  of  clothes.  I  believed 
that  men  and  women  should  go  as  nearly  naked  as  possible  .  .  cloth- 
ing for  warmth  only  .  .  and,  as  one  grew  in  strength  and  health 
through  nude  contact  with  living  sun  and  air  and  water,  the  body 
would  gradually  attain  the  power  to  keep  itself  warm  from  the 
health  and  strength  that  was  in  it. 

So,  in  the  middle  of  severe  winter  that  now  had  fallen  on  us,  I 
went  about  in  sandals,  without  socks.     I  wore  no  undershirt,  and 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  191 

no  coat  .  .  and  went  with  my  shirt  open  at  the  neck.  I  wore 
no  hat.  .  . 

Spalton  himself  often  went  coatless — in  warm  weather.  His  main 
sartorial  eccentricity  was  the  wearing  of  a  broad-brimmed  hat. 
And  whenever  he  bought  a  new  Stetson,  he  cut  holes  in  the  top  and 
jumped  on  it,  to  make  it  look  more  interesting  and  less  shop-new  .  . 
of  course  everybody  in  the  community  wore  soft  shirts  and  flow- 
ing ties. 

We  addressed  each  other  by  first  names  and  nicknames.  Spalton 
went  under  the  appellation  of  "John."  One  day  a  wealthy  visitor 
'^ad  driven  up.     Spalton  was  out  chopping  wood. 

"Come  here,  John,  and  hold  my  horses." 

Spalton  dropped  the  axe  and  obeyed. 

Afterward  he  had  been  dismissed  with  a  fifty  cent  tip. 

He  told  the  story  on  himself,  and  the  name  "John"  stuck. 


Working  in  the  bindery,  I  began  to  find  out  things  about  the 
community  of  Eos  that  were  not  as  ideal  as  might  be  .  .  most  of 
the  illumination  of  the  books  was  done  by  girls,  even  by  children 
after  school  hours.  The  outlines  of  the  letters  and  objects  to  be 
hand-illumined  were  printed  in  with  the  text,  the  girls  and  children 
merely  coloured  them  between  the  lines. 

In  each  department,  hidden  behind  gorgeous,  flowing  curtains, 
were  time-clocks,  on  which  employees  rang  up  when  they  came  to 
work,  and  when  they  left.  Also,  each  worker  was  supposed  to 
receive  dividends — which  dividends  consisted  in  pairs  of  mittens  and 
thick  woolen  socks  distributed  by  the  foremen  at  Christmas  time  .  . 
or  maybe  an  extra  dollar  in  pay,  that  week. 

"Two  dollars  a  week  less  than  a  fellow  would  draw  at  any  other 
place  that  ran  the  same  sort  of  business,"  grumbled  a  young  book- 
binder who  was  by  way  of  being  a  poet,  "and  a  pair  of  woolen  mit- 
tens or  socks,  or  an  extra  dollar,  once  a  year,  as  dividends !" 

However,  I  think  that  the  artworkers  had  finer  lodgings  and 
board  than  most  workers  could  have  supplied  for  themselves  .  . 
and  the  married  couples  lived  in  nicer  houses  .  .  and  they  heard  the 
best  music,  had  the  best  books  to  read,  lived  truly  in  the  presence 
of  the  greatest  art  and  thought  of  the  world  .  .  and  heard  speak  in 
the  chapel,  from  time  to  time,   all  the  distinguished  men  of  the 


192  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

country  .  .  who  came,  sooner  or  later,  to  visit  Spalton  and  our 
community.  .  . 

What  though  the  wages  were  not  so  big,  what  though  you  rang 
up  the  time  of  arrival  at  work  and  the  time  of  departure  from  it, 
on  hidden  time-clocks,  what  though  every  piece  of  statuary,  every 
picture,  every  stick  of  furniture,  had,  on  the  bottom  of  it,  its  price 
label,  or,  depending  from  it,  its  tag  that  told  the  price  at  which 
it  might  be  bought !  .  , 

•  •••••• 

Spalton  had  begun  his  active  career  as  a  business  man,  had  swung 
out  from  that,  his  fertile  mind  glimpsing  what  worlds  of  thought 
and  imagination  lay  beyond  it ! 

But  now  Big  Business  was  calling  him  back  again,  using  him 
for  its  purposes. 

Oftener  and  oftener  magnificently  written  articles  by  him  began 
to  appear  in  his  remarkable  little  magazine,  The  Dawn.  And  the 
Ingersoll  of  Dollar  Watch  fame  crowded  out  the  Ingersoll  of  brave 
agnosticism  .  .  and  when  he  wrote  now  of  artists  and  writers,  it  was 
their  thrifty  habits,  their  business  traits,  that  he  lauded. 

"A  great  man  can  be  practical  and  businesslike,  in  fact  the 
greatest  of  them  always  are,"  he  defended.  "There  was  Voltaire, 
the  successful  watchmaker  at  Ferney  .  .  and  there  was  Shakespeare, 
who,  after  his  success  in  London,  returned  to  Avon  and  practically 
bought  up  the  whole  town  .  .  he  even  ran  a  butcher  shop  there, 
you  know." 

*'The  people  expect  startling  things  .  .  and,  as  the  winds  of  genius 
blow  where  they  list — when  they  refuse  to  blow  in  the  direction 
required,  divine  is  the  art  of  buncombe,"  he  jested. 

I  suppose  this  applied  to  his  musician-prodigy,  a  girl  of  eight, 
who  worked,  in  the  afternoons,  in  the  bindery.  And  when  a  visiting 
party  swept  through  that  department,  it  was  part  of  her  job  to  rise 
as  if  under  the  impulse  of  inspiration,  leave  her  work,  and  go  to  a 
nearby  piano  and  play  .  .  the  implication  being  that  the  piano 
was  placed  there  for  the  use  of  the  workers  when  melody  surged 
within  them.  .  . 

But  she  was  the  only  one  who  played.  And  she  never  played 
except  when  she  was  tipped  the  wink.  And  it  was  only  one  thing — 
a  something  of  Rubenstein's  .  .  which  she  had  practised  and  prac- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  193 

tised  and  practised  to  perfection ;  and  that  rendered,  with  haughty 
head,  like  a  Httle  sibyl,  she  would  go  back  to  her  work-bench.  And 
if  urged  to  play  more,  she  would  answer,  lifting  her  great,  velvet 
eyes  in  a  dreamy  gaze,  "no,  no  more  to-day.  The  inspiration  has 
gone."     And,  awed,  the  visitors  would  depart. 

Back  of  the  bindery  stood  the  blacksmith  shop,  where  MacKit- 
trick,  the  historian-blacksmith,  plied  the  bellows  and  smote  the 
anvil. 

MacKittrick  took  a  liking  to  me.  For  one  day  we  began  talking 
about  ancient  history,  and  he  perceived  that  I  had  a  little  knowl- 
edge of  it,  and  a  feeling  for  the  colour  and  motion  of  its  long-ago 
life. 

"I  want  you  to  come  and  work  for  me,"  he  urged,  "my  work  is 
mostly  pretty,"  he  apologised,  with  blacksmith  sturdiness,  " — not 
making  horseshoes,  but  cutting  out  delicate  things,  ornamental  iron 
work  for  aesthetic  purposes,  and  all  that  .  .  all  you'll  have  to  do  will 
be  to  swing  the  hammer  gently,  while  I  direct  the  blows  and  cut 
out  the  dainty  filigree  the  "Master"  sells  to  folk,  afterward,  as  art." 

"Well,  isn't  it  art?"  I  asked. 

"I  suppose  it  is.  But  I  like  the  strong  work  of  blacksmithing 
best.  You  see,  I  was  born  to  be  a  great  historian.  But  destiny 
has  made  me  a  blacksmith,"  he  continued  irrelevantly  .  .  "do  come 
out  and  work  for  me.  I'm  hungry  for  an  intelligent  helper  who 
can  talk  history  with  me  while  we  work." 

My  transfer  was  effected.  And  I  was  immediately  glad  of  it. 
*'Mac,"  as  we  called  him,  was  a  fine,  solid  man  .  .  and  he  did  know 
history.  He  knew  it  as  a  lover  knows  his  mistress.  He  was  right. 
He  should  have  been  a  great  historical  writer — great  historian 
he  was! 

For  two  glorious  months  I  was  with  him.  And  during  those  two 
months,  I  learned  more  about  the  touch  and  texture  of  the  historic 
life  of  man  than  three  times  as  many  years  in  college  could  have 
taught  me. 

"Mac"  talked  of  Caesar  as  if  only  yesterday  he  had  shaken  hands 
with  him  in  the  Forum  .  .  and  he  was  shocked  over  his  murder  as  if 
it  had  happened  right  after.  .  . 

"Ah,  that  was  a  bad  day  for  Rome  and  the  future  of  the  world, 
when  those  mad  fellows  struck  him  down  there  like  a  pig!"  he  cried. 


194  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

And  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  was  "a  sweet,  soft  body  of  a  white 
thing  that  should  have  been  content  with  being  in  love,  and  never 
tried  to  rule!"  .   . 


"Can  you  coolc?"  asked  Spalton  of  me  one  day,  just  as  Barton 
had  done  at  "Perfection  City." 

"No,"  I  replied  honestly,  thinking  back  to  that  experience. 

"Fine!"  was  the  unexpected  rejoinder,  "I'm  going  to  send  you 
out  to  the  camp  to  cook  for  my  lumber-jacks  for  a  few  weeks." 

"But  I  said  I  couldn't  cook." 

"You  know  how  to  turn  an  egg  in  the  pan?  you  know  enough 
not  to  let  ham  and  bacon  burn?  .  .  you  know  water  won't  scorch, 
no  matter  how  long  it  stands  over  the  fire?  .   . 

"You'll  make  an  excellent  cook  for  lumber-jacks  .  .  so  long  as 
it's  something  to  eat  that's  stuck  under  their  noses,  they  don't  give 
a  damn!  .  .  they're  always  hungry  enough  to  eat  anything  .  .  and 
can  digest  anything.   .   . 

"Get  ready !    I'm  sending  you  out  on  one  of  the  waggons  by  noon." 

Perched  on  the  high  seat  of  the  waggon  by  the  side  of  the  driver ! 
The  latter  was  bundled  up  to  the  chin  .  .  wore  a  fur  cap  that  came 
down  over  the  ears  .  .  was  felt-booted  against  the  cold  .  .  wore 
heavy  gloves. 

It  was  so  cold  that  the  breath  of  the  horses  went  straight  up  into 
the  air  like  thick,  white  wool.  As  we  rode  by,  the  passing  farmers 
that  were  driving  into  town  almost  fell  off  their  seats,  startled, 
and  staring  at  me.  For  there  I  perched  .  .  coatless  and  hatless  .  . 
sockless  feet  in  sandals  .  .  my  shirt  flung  open,  a  la  Byron,  at 
the  neck. 

It  is  true  that  the  mind  can  do  anything.  I  thought  myself  into 
being  composed  and  comfortable.  I  did  not  mind,  truly  I  did  not 
mind  it. 

The  driver  had  protested,  but  only  once,  laconically: 

"Whar's  y'r  coat  an'  hat?" 

"I  never  wear  any,"  I  explained,  beginning  a  propagandistic 
harangue  on  the  non-essentiality  of  clothes.  .  . 

He  cut  in  with  the  final  pronouncement; 

"Damn  fool,  you'll  git  pneumony." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  J95 

Then  he  fell  into  obdurate,  contemptuous  silence. 

•  •  •  •  •  « 

The  snow  was  deep  about  our  living  shanty  and  cook-shack  in 
one,  but  hard-frozen  enough  to  bear  a  man's  weight  without  snow- 
shoes.  Over  the  crust  had  fallen  a  powdery,  white,  new  snow,  about 
four  inches  deep. 

Every  morning,  after  the  "boys"  had  eaten  their  breakfast  and 
left  for  the  woods,  I  went  through  my  exercises,  stripped,  out  in  the 
open  .  .  a  half  hour  of  it,  finished  by  a  roll  in  the  snow,  that  set  me 
tingling  all  over. 

One  morning  I  made  up  my  mind  to  startle  the  "boys"  by  run- 
ning, mother-naked,  in  a  circle,  whooping,  about  them,  where  they 
were  sawing  up  fallen  trees  and  felling  others. 

It  was  a  half  mile  to  where  they  worked. 

For  more  bizarre  effect,  I  clapped  on  a  straw  hat  which  I  found 
in  the  rafters — a  relic  of  the  preceding  summer.  .  . 

"Gosh  a'mighty,  what's  this  a-comin!"  .  . 

Everybody  stopped  working.  Two  neighbour  farmers,  who  had 
come  over  for  a  bit  of  gossip,  stooped,  their  hands  on  their  knees, 
bowed  with  astonishment,  as  if  they  had  beheld  an  apparition. 

One  of  the  "boys"  told  me  the  two  held  silence  for  a  long  time — 
till  I  was  entirely  out  of  sight  again,  and  after. 

Then  one  exclaimed,  "air  they  any  more  luny  fellers  like  thet, 
back  at  them  Artwork  shops?" 

The  incident  gave  birth  to  the  legend  of  a  crazy  man  under 
Spalton's  care,  whose  chief  insanity  was  running  naked  through 
snowdrifts. 

Spalton  had  three  sons.  Roderick  was  the  eldest:  named  after 
his  father.  Level-headed  and  businesslike,  he  followed  his  father's 
vagaries  because  he  saw  the  commercial  possibilities  in  them  .  . 
though  he  did  so  more  as  a  practical  man  with  a  sense  of  humour 
than  as  a  man  who  was  on  the  make.  Spalton,  who  knew  men 
thoroughly  and  quickly  appraised  their  individual  natures,  had 
installed  Roderick  in  the  managing  end  of  things, — there  with  the 
aid  of  an  older  head — one  Alfoxden,  of  whom  Spalton  made  too 
much  of  a  boast,  telling  everyone  he  had  rescued  him  from  a  life 
of  crime;  Alfoxden,  when  younger,  forged  a  check  and  had  served 
his  term  for  it.      Coming  out  into  the  world  again,  no  one  would 


196  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

trust  him  because  of  that  one  mistake.  Spalton,  at  this  juncture, 
took  him  In  and  gave  him  a  new  chance — ^but — as  I  said  unkindly, 
In  my  mind,  and  publicly,  he  made  capital  of  his  generous  action. 

But  Alfoxden  was  a  soul  of  rare  quality.  He  never  seemed  to 
resent  "John's"  action.  He  was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  and  too 
grateful  for  the  real  help  Spalton  had  extended  to  him. 

Alfoxden  was  a  slight,  Mephlstophelian  man  .  .  with  bushy,  red 
eyebrows.  And  he  was  totally  bald,  except  for  the  upper  part  of 
his  neck,  which  was  fiery  with  red  hair.  He  had  a  large  knowledge 
of  the  Rabelalsan  in  literature  .  .  had  in  his  possession  several 
rather  wild  effusions  of  Mark  Twain  In  the  original  copy,  and  a 
whole  MSS.  volume  of  Field's  smutty  casual  verse.  .  . 

But  I  was  in  the  lumber  camp,  cooking  for  the  "boys."  .  . 

"Hank,"  Spalton's  youngest  son  (there  was  a  second  son,  whose 
name  I  forget  .  .  lived  with  his  mother,  Spalton's  divorced  wife.  In 
Syracuse,  and  was  the  conventional,  well-brought-up,  correct  youth) 
— Hank  worked  In  the  camp,  along  with  the  other  lumber-jacks. 

The  boy  was  barely  sixteen,  yet  he  was  six  feet  two  in  his  stocking 
feet  .  .  huge-shouldered,  stupendous-muscled,  a  vegetarian,  his  pic- 
ture had  appeared  in  the  magazines  as  the  prodigy  who  had  grown 
strong  on  "Best  o'  Wheat,"  a  prepared  breakfast  food  then  popular. 

I  asked  him  if  the  story  that  he  had  built  his  growth  and  strength 
on  it  was  a  fake. 

"Yes.  I  never  ate  *Best  o'  Wheat'  in  my  life,  except  once  or 
twice,"  he  answered,  "I  like  only  natural  food  .  .  vegetables  .  .  and 
lots  of  milk  .  .  but  I  draw  the  line  at  prepared,  pre-digested  stuff 
and  baled  breakfast  foods." 

"Then  why  did  you  lend  them  the  use  of  your  name.^"' 

*'0h,  everybody  that  has  any  prominence  does  that  ,  .  for  a 
price  .  .  but  I  really  didn't  want  to  do  it.  *John'  made  me  .  .  or  I 
wouldn't  have." 

*'And  now  you  have  your  hair  cropped  close,  why  is  that?" 

"I  suppose  it's  all  right  to  wear  your  hair  long  .  .  but,  last 
summer,  it  got  so  damned  hot  with  the  huge  mop  I  had,  that  I 
always  had  a  headache  .  .  so  one  day  I  went  down  town  to  the  barber 
and  slipped  into  his  chair.  'Hello,  Hank,'  says  he,  *what  do  you 
want,  a  shave?'  (joking  you  know — I  didn't  have  but  one  or  two 
cat-hairs  on  my  face).  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  197 

"  *No,  Jim,  I  want  a  hair-cut.'  At  first  he  refused  .  .  said  *The 
Master'  would  bite  his  head  off  .  .  but  then  he  did  it 

"John  wouldn't  speak  to  me  that  night,  at  table  .  .  but  the  other 
fellows  shouted  and  clapped.  .  . 

"I  don't  exactly  get  dad's  idea  all  the  time  .  .  he's  a  mighty 
clever  man,  though.  .  . 

"Books?  Oh,  yes  .  .  the  only  ones  I  care  about  are  those  on 
Indians  and  Indian  lore  .  .  I  have  all  the  Smithsonian  Institution 
books  on  the  subject  .  .  and  I  have  a  wigwam  back  of  the  bindery — 
haven't  you  noticed  it? — ^where  I  like  to  go  and  sit  cross-legged  and 
meditate  .  .  no,  I  don't  want  to  study  regular  things.  Dad  always 
makes  me  give  in,  in  fact,  whenever  I  act  stubborn,  by  threatening 
to  send  me  off  to  a  regular  school.   .   . 

"No,  I  want  nothing  else  but  to  work  with  my  hands  all  my  life." 


But,  with  all  his  thinking  for  himself,  "Hank"  was  also  childishly 
vulgar.  He  gulped  loudly  as  he  ate,  thinking  it  an  evidence  of 
hearty  good-fellowship.  And  he  deliberately  broke  wind  at  the 
table  .  .  then  would  rap  on  wood  and  laugh.  .  . 

I,  on  my  dignity  as  cook,  and  because  the  others,  rough  as  they 
were,  complained  to  me  in  private  about  this  behaviour,  but  did  not 
openly  speak  against  it  because  "Hank"  was  their  employer's  son. 
I  took  exception  to  the  good-natured  "lummox's"  behaviour. 

One  morning  he  was  the  last  to  climb  out  from  over  the  bench 
at  the  rough,  board  table.   .   . 

"Hank  .  .  wait.    I  want  to  speak  to  you  a  minute." 

"Yes,  Razorre,  what  is  it?"  he  asked,  waiting.   .   . 

"Hank,  the  boys  have  delegated  me  to  tell  you  that  you  must  use 
better  manners  than  you  do,  at  meals." 

"The  hell  you  say!  and  what  are  you  going  to  do  if  I  don't?" 

"I — why.  Hank,  I  hadn't  thought  of  that  .  .  but,  since  you  bring 
up  the  question,  I'm  going  to  try  to  stop  you,  if  you  won't  stop 
yourself." 

" — think  you  can?  — think  you're  strong  enough?" 

«I  said  HryT 

"Listen,  Razorre,"  and  he  came  over  to  me  with  lazy,  good- 
natured  strength,  "I'll  pick  you  up,  take  you  out,  and  roll  you  in  the 
snow,  if  you  don't  keep  still." 


198  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"And  I'll  try  my  best  to  give  you  a  good  whipping,"  replied  I, 
setting  my  teeth  hard,  and  glaring  at  him. 

He  started  at  me,  grinning.  I  put  the  table  between  us,  and 
began  taking  deep  breaths  to  thoroughly  oxygenate  my  blood,  so  it 
would  help  me  in  my  forthcoming  grapple  with  the  big,  over-groAvn 
giant. 

He  toppled  the  table  over.  We  were  together.  I  kept  on  breath- 
ing like  a  hard-working  bellows,  as  I  wrestled  about  with  him. 

He  seized  me  by  the  right  leg  and  tried  to  lift  me  up,  carry  me 
out.  I  pushed  his  head  back  by  hooking  my  fingers  under  his  nose, 
like  a  prong. 

Then  I  grabbed  him  by  the  seat  of  the  britches  and  heaved. 
And  they  burst  clean  up  the  back  like  a  bean  pod.   .  , 

Unexpectedly  Hank  flopped  on  the  bench  and  began  to  shout 
with  laughter.   .  . 

My  heavy,  artificial  breathing,  like  a  bellows,  for  the  sake  of 
oxygenating  more  strength  into  my  muscles,  had  struck  him  as 
being  so  ludicrous,  that  he  was  in  high  good  humour.  I  joined  in 
the  laughter,  struck  in  the  same  way. 

"I  surrender,  Razorre,  and  I'll  promise  to  be  decent  at  the  table — 
you  skinny,  crazy,  old  poet!" 

And  he  rumbled  and  thundered  again  with  Brobdingnagian  mirth. 

Back  from  the  lumber  camp.  Comparatively  milder  weather, 
but  still  the  farmers  we  passed  on  the  road  were  startled  by  my 
summery  attire.  But  by  this  time  the  lumber-jacks  and  I  were  on 
terms  of  proven  friendship  .  .  I  had  told  them  yarns,  and  had 
listened  to  their  yarns,  in  turn  .  .  the  stories  of  their  lives  .  .  and 
their  joys  and  troubles.  .  . 

I  was  reported  to  Spalton  as  having  been  a  first-rate  cook. 

I  went  to  work  in  the  bindery  again. 

Every  day  seemed  to  bring  a  new  "eccentric"  to  join  our  colony. 
I  have  hardly  begun  to  enumerate  the  prime  ones,  yet.  .   . 

But  when  I  returned  to  the  little  settlement  a  curious  man  had 
already  established  himself  .  .  one  who  was  called  by  Spalton,  in 
tender  ridicule.  Gabby  Jack  .  .  that  was  Spalton's  nickname  for 
him  .  .  and  it  stuck,  because  it  was  so  appropriate.  Jack  was  a 
pilgrim  in  search  of  Utopia.     And  he  was  straightway  convinced, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  199 

wholly  and  completely,  that  he  had  found  it  In  Eos.  To  him  Spalton 
was  the  one  and  undoubted  prophet  of  God,  the  high  priest  of  Truth. 

Gabby  Jack  was  a  "j'iner."  From  his  huge,  ornate,  gold  watch- 
chain  hung  three  or  four  bejewelled  insignia  of  secret  societies  that 
he  was  a  member  of.  He  wore  a  flowered  waistcoat  ,  .  an  enormous 
seal-ring,  together  with  other  rings. 

He  had  laid  aside  a  competence,  by  working  his  way  from  jour- 
neyman carpenter  to  an  independent  builder  of  frame  houses,  in 
some  thriving  town  in  the  Middle  West  .  .  where,  in  his  fifty-fifth 
year,  he  had  received  the  call  to  go  forth  in  quest  of  the  Ideal, 
the  One  Truth. 

His  English  was  a  marvel  of  ignorant  ornateness,  like  his  vest  and 
his  watch-chain  and  rings.  He  had,  apparently,  no  family  ties. 
Spalton  became  his  father,  his  mother,  his  brother,  his  sister,  almost 
his  God.  There  was  nothing  the  Master  said  or  did  that  was 
not  perfect  .  .  he  would  stand  with  worship  and  adoration  written 
large  on  his  swarthy,  great  face,  listening  to  Spalton's  most  trivial 
words.  .  . 

Otherwise,  he  was  Gabby  Jack  .  .  talking  .  .  talking  .  .  talking  .  . 
with  everybody  he  met  .  .  enquiring  .  .  questioning  .  .  taking  notes  in 
a  large,  crude,  misspelling  hand  .  .  trying  himself  to  write.   .   . 

We  ran  away  from  him  .  .  Spalton  ran  away  from  him  .  .  "this 
fellow  will  be  the  death  of  me,"  he  remarked  to  me,  one  afternoon, 
with  a  light  of  pleasure  and  pride  in  his  eyes,  however,  at  being 
so  worshipped.      "Ah,  Razorre,  beware  of  the  ignorant  disciple!" 

There  was  nothing  Jack  would  not  do  for  Spalton.  He  sought 
out  opportunities  and  occasions  for  serving  him. 

And  he  would  guide  visitors  over  the  establishment.  And,  coming 
to  the  office  where  Spalton  usually  sat  and  worked,  he  was  heard 
to  say  once,  with  a  wide-spread,  reverential  sweep  of  the  hand — 
"and  this,  ladies  and  gents,  is  the  (his  voice  dropping  to  a  reveren- 
tial whisper)  'Sancta  Sanctoria.'  " 

Jack  could  not  see  so  well  with  one  eye  as  he  could  with  the 
other.  A  cataract  was  there  which  gave  that  eye  the  appearance 
of  a  milky-coloured,  poached  egg.  .  , 

Coming  home  from  Buffalo  one  evening,  he  stepped  down  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  train,  in  the  dusk.  .  .  perhaps  from  his  eagerness 
to  sit  by  his  prophet  at  supper  again  that  night — there  being  too 
long  a  line  leaving  at  the  station,  ahead  of  him. 


200  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

A  freight  was  drawing  out  on  the  track  opposite.  And  Gabby 
was  so  huge  that  he  was  rolled  like  a  log  in  a  jam,  between  the  two 
moving  trains  .  .  when  the  freight  had  passed,  he  rose  and  walked. 
He  took  a  cab  to  the  Artwork  Studios. 

All  in  tatters,  he  hurried  to  his  room  and  put  on  another  suit. 
He  appeared  at  supper  by  the  side  of  the  Master.  He  narrated 
what  had  happened,  amid  laughter  and  joking.  When  Spalton 
wanted  to  send  for  his  old,  frail,  white-headed  father,  the  elder 
Spalton,  who  was  the  community  doctor,  Jack  waved  the  idea 
aside. 

"Oh,  no.  Master!"  (Master  he  called  Spalton,  and  never  the 
familiar,  more  democratic  John)  "Oh,  no,  I'm  all  right."  .  . 

The  next  morning  Jack  did  not  show  up  for  breakfast. 

At  ten  o'clock  Spalton,  solicitous,  went  up  to  his  room.   .   . 

He  shouted  for  help.  He  had  found  his  disciple  there,  huge  and 
dead,  like  a  stranded  sea-thing. 

In  Gabby  Jack's  will  .  .  for  they  found  one,  together  with  a  last 
word  and  testament  for  humanity, — it  was  asked  of  Spalton  that  he 
should  conduct  the  funeral  from  the  Chapel  .  .  and  read  the  funeral 
oration,  written  by  the  deceased  himself  .  .  and  add,  if  the  Master 
felt  moved,  a  few  words  thereto  of  his  own  .  .  if  he  considered  that 
so  mean  a  disciple  deserved  it. 

•  •••••• 

All  work  was  suspended  the  day  of  Jack's  funeral. 

Spalton  eloquently  read  the  curious,  crude  composition  of  his 
disciple  .  .  which  had  fine  flashes,  as  of  lightning  in  a  dark  sky,  here 
and  there,  in  it. 

Then  Spalton  began  adding  words  of  his  own,  in  praise  of  the 
deceased 

"You  all  know  this  dear  comrade  of  ours,"  he  began,  "this  dear 
friend  whose  really  fine  soul,  while  in  the  body — ^went  under  the 
appellation  of  Gabby  Jack " 

Here  Spalton  broke  down.  He  unashamedly  dropped  into  the 
chair  behind  the  reading-desk  and  wept  aloud.  He  could  say  no 
more.  .  . 

In  The  Dawn  for  the  ensuing  month  he  put  a  wonderful  and 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  201 

beautiful  tribute  to  his  disciple  .  .  who  had  thoroughly  loved,  and 
believed  in  him. 

On  a  cold  day  of  blowing  snow,  "Pete"  came  tramping  in  to 
town  .  .  his  high  boots  laced  to  the  knees,  a  heavy  alpaca  coat  about 
him  .  .  he  had  come  all  the  way  from  Philadelphia  on  foot,  to  add 
his  portrait  to  our  gallery  of  eccentrics  .  .  but  he  was  not  so 
unusual  after  all  .  .  there  was  too  much  of  the  hungry  hardness  of 
youth  in  him,  the  cocksureness  of  conceit  which  he  considered  genius. 

Immediately  he  put  Spalton  to  question  .  .  and  everything  and 
everybody  to  question.   .  . 

He  irritated  Spalton  most  by  attacking  doctors  .  .  (though  Spal- 
ton himself  did  so  in  his  magazine)  .  .  Spalton's  father  was  an  old 
family  practitioner.   .   . 

But  the  Master's  revenge  came. 

"Pete"  fell  sick.  Spalton  sent  for  his  father  to  doctor  him.  And 
made  the  old  man  use  a  strong  horse-medicine  on  him  .  .  which  he 
himself  brought  up  from  the  stables.   .   . 

"The  boy  is  such  an  ass  .  ."  Spalton  told  me  laughingly,  "that 
it's  a  veterinarian  he  needs,  not  a  doctor." 

There  was  Speedwell,  the  young  naturalist  .  .  a  queer,  stooping, 
gentle,  shy  thing,  who  talked  almost  as  an  idiot  would  talk  till  he 
got  on  his  favourite  topic  of  bird  and  beast  and  flower.  In  personal 
appearance  he  was  a  sort  of  Emerson  gone  to  weed  .  .  he  walked 
about  with  a  quick,  perky,  deprecative  step.   .   . 

" — queer  fish,"  John  remarked  of  him,  "but,  Razorre,  you  ought 
to  come  on  him  in  the  woods  .  .  there  he  is  a  different  person  .  . 
he  sits  under  a  tree  till  he  seems  to  become  part  of  the  vegetation, 
the  landscape  .  .  when  I  had  him  out  to  camp  with  me  last  summer 
he  would  go  off  alone  and  stay  away  till  we  thought  he  ha4  got  lost, 
or  had  walked  into  a  pond,  in  his  simpleness,  and  drowned.  .  . 

We  followed  him,  and  watched  him.  .  . 

There  he  sat  .  .  in  his  brown  corduroys  .  .  his  lock  of  hair  over  his 
eyes  .  .  that  simple,  sweet,  idiotic  expression,  like  sick  sunshine,  on 
his  mouth.  .  . 

And  after  a  while  the  birds  came  down  to  him  .  .  pecked  all  around 
him  .  .  and  a  squirrel  climbed  up  on  his  shoulder  .  .  he  seemed  to 
have  an  attraction  for  the  wild  things  .  .  it  wasn't  as  if  they  just 


202  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

accepted  him  as  a  part  of  the  surroundings  .  .  the  man  sat  there  like 
a  stump  till  we  grew  tired  watching,  and  returned  to  camp.  .  . 

Each  day  he  spent  most  of  the  day,  immobile,  like  that.  .  . 

"Say  Razorre,"  the  Master  continued,  after  a  thoughtful  pause, 
*'you  know  you  nuts  are  teaching  me  a  lot  of  things.  .  . 

"The  trouble  with  the  educated,  regular  folks  is  that  they  lose 
so  much  by  drawing  the  line  .  .  often  everything  that  is  spontaneous 
and  fine.  .  .  This  thing  called  God,  you  know,  draws  the  line  no- 
where. .  . 

"If  'Crazy'  Speedwell  fell  heir  to  a  large  sum  of  money,  his  rela- 
tives could  find  a  commission  of  physicians  anywhere,  who  would 
honestly  have  him  into  custody  for  lunacy  .  .  yet,  in  some  respects, 
he  is  the  wisest  and  kindest  man  I  have  ever  known  .  .  though,  in 
others,  he  is  often  such  a  fool  as  to  try  my  patience  very  hard,  at 
times." 

•  •••••• 

Most  of  us  who  had  arrived  at  "The  Studios"  from  "foreign" 
parts,  slept  in  the  common  dormitory. 

We  held  frequent  "roughhouses"  there,  the  younger  of  us  .  .  to 
the  annoyance  of  Speedwell.  Spalton  finally  gave  him  permission 
to  sleep  and  live,  alone,  in  the  shed  where  the  fire-truck  and  hose 
was  stored.   .  . 

One  night,  for  malicious  fun,  a  beak-nosed  young  prize-fighter, 
and  several  others  (including  myself)  sneaked  into  his  abode  while 
he  slept  .  .  thoughtlessly  we  turned  the  gas  on  and  tiptoed  out 
again.   .  . 

Not  long  after  he  came  staggering  forth,  half-suffocated.   .   . 

Everybody  laughed  at  the  tale  of  this  .  .  at  first  Spalton  himself 
laughed,  our  American  spirit  of  rough  joking  and  horse-play  gain- 
ing the  uppermost  in  him  .  .  but  then  he  recalled  to  mind  the  serious- 
ness of  our  practical  joke,  and  burned  with  anger  at  us  over  what 
we  had  done.  And  he  threatened  to  "fire"  on  the  spot  anyone  who 
ever  again  molested  "Crazy"  Speedwell.  .  , 

.  •  •  •  •  •  • 

"Old  Pfeiler"  we  called  him.  .  . 

Pfeiler  had  attended  one  of  Spalton's  lectures  at  Chicago. 
Afterward,  he  had  come  up  front  and  asked  the  lecturer  if  he 
could  make  a  place  for  him  at  Eos  .  .  that  he  was  out  of  a  job  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  203 

starving  .  .  a  poor  German  scholar  .  .  formerly,  In  better  days,  a 
man  of  much  wealth  and  travel.  .  . 

He  had  spent  his  last  nickel  for  admission  to  Spalton's  lecture. 
Spalton  brought  him  back  to  the  Eos  Artwork  Studios. 

There  he  found  that  the  queer,  gentle,  old  man  was  as  helpless  as 
a  child  .  .  all  he  could  be  trusted  to  do  was  to  write  addresses  on 
letters  .  .  which  he  was  set  at,  not  too  exactingly.  .  . 

I  never  saw  so  happy  a  man  as  Pfeiler  was  that  winter. 

He  was  a  Buddhist,  not  by  pose,  but  by  sincere  conviction.  He 
thought,  also,  that  the  Koran  was  a  greater  book  than  the  Bible  .  . 
and  more  miraculous  .  .  "one  man,  Mohammed,  who  left  a  work  of 
greater  beauty  than  the  combined  efforts  of  the  several  hundred 
who  gave  us  that  hodge-podge,  the  Bible." 

Pfeiler  had  been  left  a  fortune  by  his  father,  a  wealthy  German 
merchant  .  .  so,  like  Sir  Richard  Burton,  he  had  made  off  to  the 
Near  East  .  .  where  he  had  lived  among  the  Turks  for  ten  years  .  . 
till,  what  with  his  buying  rare  manuscripts  and  Oriental  and  Turkish 
art,  he  had  suddenly  run  upon  the  rocks  of  bankruptcy  .  .  and  had 
returned  from  the  Levantine  a  ruined,  helpless  scholar,  who  had 
never  been  taught  to  be  anything  else  but  a  man  of  culture  and 
leisure.   .  . 

By  steerage  he  made  his  way  to  America  .  .  to  Chicago  .  .  all  his 
works  of  art,  his  priceless  manuscripts  sold  .  .  the  money  gone  like 
water  through  the  assiduities  of  false  friends  and  sycophants.   .  . 

On  the  bum  in  Chicago  .  a  hotel  clerk,  discharged  as  incom- 
petent— he  had  forgotten  to  insist  that  a  man  and  woman  register 
always  as  man  and  wife  .  .  "because  it  was  such  hypocrisy"  .  . 
finally  a  dishwasher,  who  lived  in  a  hall  bed-room  .  .  no  friends 
because  of  his  abstractedness,  his  immersion  in  oriental  scholarship 
.  .  his  only  place  of  refuge,  his  dwelling  place,  when  not  washing 
dishes  for  a  mere  existence,  the  Public  Library.   .   . 

"Old  Pfeiler"  drank  coffee  by  the  quart,  as  drunkards  drink  whis- 
key. He  had  a  nervous  affliction  which  caused  him  to  shake  his 
head  continually,  as  if  in  impatience  .  .  or  as  a  dog  shakes  his 
head  to  dislodge  something  that  has  crept  into  his  ear.  .  . 

He  was  as  timid  as  a  girl.  .  . 

The  common  dormitory  was  no  place  for  him  .  .  I  am  sorry  to 
confess  that,  for  a  while,  I  helped  to  make  his  life  miserable  for 


204  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

him  .  .  each  night  the  beak-nosed  pugilist-lad  and  I  raised  a  merry 
roughhouse  in  the  place  .  .  Pfeiler  was  our  chief  butt.  We  put 
things  in  his  bed  .  .  threw  objects  about  so  they  would  wake  him 
up.  One  night  I  found  him  crying  silently  .  .  but  somehow  not 
ignobly  .  .  this  made  me  shift  about  in  my  actions  toward  him,  and 
see  how  miserable  my  conduct  had  been.  .  . 

So  the  next  time  "Beak-horn,"  as  I  called  my  plug-ugly  friend, 
started  to  tease  the  old  man,  I  asked  him  to  stop  .  .  that  we  had 
tormented  Pfeiler  long  enough.  "Beak-horn"  replied  with  a  sur- 
prised, savage  stare  .  .  and  the  next  moment  he  was  on  me,  half 
in  jest,  half  in  earnest.  I  boxed  with  him  as  hard  and  swift  as  I 
was  able  .  .  but  a  flock  of  fists  drove  in  over  me  .  .  and  I  was 
thrown  prone  across  the  form  of  the  old  man  .  .  who  stuttered 
with  fright  and  impotent  rage,  swearing  it  was  all  a  put-up  game 
between  us  to  torment  him  further,  when  I  protested  that  I  had 
not  tried  to  do  it. 

•  •••••  •' 

The  next  morning  Spalton  sent  for  me. 

"Look  here,  Razorre,  if  you  were  not  the  biggest  freak  of  them 
all,  I  could  understand,"  he  remarked  severely.  .  . 

I  tried  to  explain  how  sorry  I  was  for  the  way  I  had  joined  in 
Pfeiler's  persecution  .  .  but  the  master  would  have  none  of  it  .  . 
he  told  me  to  look  better  to  my  conduct  or  he  would  have  to  expel 
me  from  the  community.   .   . 

"Gregory,"  he  ended,  calling  me  by  my  name,"  somehow  I  never 
quite  get  you  .  .  most  of  the  time  you  are  refined  and  almost  over- 
gentle  .  .  you  know  and  love  poetry  and  art  and  the  worth-while 
things  .  .  but  then  there's  also  the  hoodlum  in  you  .  .  the  dirty 

Hooligan "  his   eyes  blazed  with  just   rebuke  .  .  I  trod   out 

silently,  sick  of  myself,  at  heart  .  .  as  I  have  often,  often  been. 

After  that,  Pfeiler  avoided  me.  I  went  up  to  him  in  apology. 
Most  contritely  I  said  I  was  sorry. 

"You  are  a  fraud,"  he  cried  at  me,  spluttering,  almost  gnashing 
his  teeth  in  fury,  "you  go  around  here,  pretending  you  are  a  poet, 
and  have  the  soul  of  a  thug,  a  brute,  a  coward  and  bully  .  .  please 
don't  speak  to  me  any  more  as  long  as  I'm  here  .  .  you  only  pre- 
tend interest  in  spiritual  and  intellectual  things,  always  for  some 
brutal  reason  .  ,  even  now  you  are  planning  something  base,  some 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  205 

diabolical  betrayal  of  the  Master,  perhaps,  or  of  all  of  us  .  .  I  myself 
have  advised  Mr.  Spalton,  for  the  good  of  his  community  to  send  you 
back  to  the  tramps  and  jail-birds  from  whom  you  come  .  .  you 
scum !  you  filthy  pestilence !" 

His  head  was  shaking  like  an  oscillating  toy  .  .  his  eyes  were 
starting  from  his  head  through  force  of  his  invective  .  .  he  was 
jerking  about,  in  his  anger,  like  a  dancing  mouse.   .  . 

I  hurried  out  of  his  word-range,  overwhelmed  with  greater  shame 
than  I  can  ever  say. 

..... 
The  editor  of  the  Independent,  Dr.  William  Hayes  Ward,  had, 
so  far,  not  found  room  in  his  magazine  for  the  two  poems  of  mine 
he  had  bought.  I  was  chagrined,  and  wrote  him,  rather  impetuously, 
that,  if  he  didn't  care  for  the  poems  he  might  return  them.  Which 
he  did,  with  a  rather  frigid  and  offended  reply.  I  was  rendered 
unhappy  by  this. 

I  spoke  to  Spalton  about  it. 

"Why  Razorre,  so  you  have  come  that  near  to  being  in  print.'"' 
I  showed  him  the  poems.  "Yes,  you  have  the  making  of  a  real  poet 
in  you !" 

A  day  or  so  after  he  approached  me  with —  "I'm  writing  a  brief 
visit  to  the  home  of  Thoreau  .  .  how  would  you  like  to  compose  a 
poem  for  me,  on  him — for  the  first  page  of  the  work.?" 

"I  would  like  it  very  much,"  I  said.  In  a  few  days  I  handed  him 
the  poem.  A  "sonnet,"  the  form  of  which  I  myself  had  invented, 
in  fifteen  lines. 

For  days  I  lived  in  an  intoxication  of  anticipation  .  .  just  to 
have  one  poem  printed,  I  was  certain,  would  mean  my  immediate 
fame  .  .  so  thoroughly  did  I  believe  in  my  genius.  I  was  sure 
that  instantly  all  of  the  publishers  in  the  world  would  contend  with 
each  other  for  the  privilege  of  bringing  out  my  books. 

Spring  had  begun  to  give  hints  of  waking  green,  when  The  Brief 
Visit  was  issued  from  the  press.  I  rushed  to  procure  a  copy  before 
it  was  bound.  I  was  surprised  and  dumbfounded  to  find  that  the 
Master  had  used  the  poem  without  my  name  attached  .  .  just  as  if 
it,  with  the  rest  of  the  book,  was  from  his  own  pen. 

My  first  impulse  was  to  rush  into  the  dining  hall,  at  breakfast, 
tFaving  the  sheets,  and  calling  "John"  to  account  for  his  theft, 


206  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

before  everybody  .  .  then  I  bethought  myself  that,  perhaps,  some 
mistake  had  been  made  .  .  that  the  proofreader  might  have  left 
my  name  out. 

Spalton  looked  up  quickly  as  I  passed  by  his  table.  He  read  in 
my  face  that  I  had  already  discovered  what  he  had  done.  He 
blushed.  I  nodded  him  a  stiff  greeting.  I  ate  in  silence — at  the 
furthest  table. 

In  a  few  minutes  he  did  me  an  honour  he  had  never  shown  me 
before.  He  came  over  to  where  I  sat.  "Razorre,"  he  invited,  "how 
would  you  like  to  take  a  hike  with  me  into  the  country,  this 
morning?" 

I  gave  him  a  swift  glance.     "I  would  like  it  very  much." 
"Then  as  soon  as  you  are  through,  meet  me  in  the  library." 
I  drank  a  second  cup  of  coffee  with  studied  deliberation — in  spite* 
of  myself,  I  was  thrilled  with  the  notice  that  had  been  shown  me 
before  all  the  others.    Already  my  anger  had  somewhat  lessened. 

Never  had  the  master  been  so  eloquent,  so  much  his  better  self, 
since  that  first  day,  at  the  wood-pile.  He  strove  to  throw  the  magic 
of  his  spirit  over  me  with  all  his  power.  For  hours  we  walked,  the 
light,  pale  green  of  the  renewing  year  about  us.  But  through  it 
all  I  saw  whLtt  he  was  trying  to  effect  .  .  to  impress  me  so  deeply 
that  I  would  not  only  forgive  him  for  having  stolen  my  poem,  but 
actually  thank  him,  for  having  used  it — even  consider  it  a  mark 
of  honour  .  .  which  his  eloquence  almost  persuaded  me  to  do. 

Indeed  I  saw  the  true  greatness  in  "Jjohn"  .  .  but  I  also  saw  and 
resented  the  petty,  cruel  pilferer — stealing  helpless,  unknown,  youth- 
ful genius  for  his  own — resented  it  even  more  because  the  resources 
of  the  man's  nature  did  not  require  it  of  him  to  descend  to  such  piti- 
ful expedients.  He  was  rich  enough  in  himself  for  his  own  fame  and 
glory. 

And  why  should  he  rob  a  young  poet  of  his  first  fame,  of  the 
exquisite  pleasure  of  seeing  his  name  for  the  first  time  in  print? 
.  .  than  which  there  is  no  pleasure  more  exquisite  .  .  not  even  the 
first  possession  of  a  loved  woman!  .  .  . 

We  had  almost  returned  to  the  "Artworks"  before  I  tried  to  let 
loose  on  him  .  .  but  even  then  I  could  not.  Gently  I  asked  him 
why  he  had  not  affixed  my  name  to  my  poem. 

He  looked  at  me  with  well-simulated  amazement. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  207 

"Why,  Razorre,  I  never  even  thought  of  it  .  .  we  are  all  a  part 
of  one  community  of  endeavour  here  .  .  and  we  all  give  our  efforts 
as  a  contribution  to  the  Eos  Idea  .  .  I  have  paid  you  a  higher 
compliment  than  merely  giving  you  credit  .  .  instead,  I  have  incor- 
porated your  verse  into  the  very  body  of  our  thought  and  life." 

His  effrontery  struck  me  silent.  I  told  him  sadly  that  I  must 
now  go  away. 

"Nonsense,"  he  replied,  "this  is  as  good  a  place  in  which  to 
develop  your  poetic  genius  as  any  place  in  the  world.  I  may  say, 
better.  Here  you  will  find  congenial  environment,  ready  apprecia- 
tion .  .  come,  let  us  walk  a  little  further,"  and  we  turned  aside 
from  the  steps  of  the  dining  room  and  struck  down  the  main  street 
of  the  town. 

"I  mean  bigger  things  for  you,  Razorre,  than  you  can  guess  .  . 
I  will  make  you  the  Eos  Poet — look  at  Gresham,  he  is  the  Eos  Artist, 
and,  as  such,  his  fame  is  continent-wide  .  .  just  as  yours  will 
become  .  .  and  I  will  bring  out  a  book  of  your  poetry  .  .  and 
advertise  it  in  The  Dawn. 

His  eloquence  on  art  and  life,  genius  and  literature,  had  enthralled 
and  placated  me  .   .  his  personal  wheedling  irritated  and  angered. 

"A  book  of  my  poems  .  .  without  my  name  on  the  title  page, 
perhaps,"  I  cried,  impassioned,  looking  him  deep  in  .  le  eyes.  He 
shifted  his  glance  from  me 


I  threw  my  few  belongings  together. 

Everybody,  in  saying  good-bye,  gave  me  a  warm  hand-clasp  of 
friendship  (excepting  Pfeiler),  including  Spalton,  who  assured  me — 

"Razorre,  you'll  be  back  again  .  .  despite  its  faults,  they  all 
come  back  to  Eos." 

"Yes,"  I  responded,  sweeping  him  off  his  feet  by  the  unexpected- 
ness of  my  reply,  "yes,  in  spite  of  all,  Eos  is  a  wonderful  place  .  . 
it  has  given  me  something  .  .  in  my  heart  .  .  in  my  soul  .  .  which 
no  other  place  in  the  world  could  have  given  .  .  and  at  the  time 
I  needed  it  most  .  .  a  feeling  for  beauty,  a  fellowship " 

"Razorre,"  he  cut  in,  moved,  "we  all  have  our  faults, — God  knows 
you  have — mutual  forgiveness — "  he  murmured,  pressing  my  hand 
warmly    again;   his    great,    brown    eyes    humid    with    emotion  .  . 
whether  he  was  acting,  or  genuine  .  .  or  both  .  .  I  could  not  tell. 


208  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  didn't  care.     I  departed  with  the  warmth  of  his  benediction  over 
my  going. 

•  •••••• 

This  time  I  did  not  freight  it.    I  paid  my  fare  to  New  York. 

My  father  .  .  I  must  pay  him  a  visit,  before  lifting  my  nose  in 
the  air  like  a  migrating  bird.  Where  I  would  go  or  what  I  would 
do  that  spring  and  summer,  I  hadn't  the  vaguest  idea.   .   . 

It  seemed  but  the  day  before  that  I  had  left  Haberford.  The 
fat  policeman  who  leaned  against  the  iron  railing  of  the  small  park 
near  the  station  was  there  in  the  same  place.  The  same  young 
rowdies  pushed  each  other  about,  and  spat,  and  swore,  near  the 
undertaker  shop  and  the  telegraph  office. 

But  as  I  walked  past  the  Hartman  express  office — the  private 
concern  which  Hartman,  the  thin,  wiry  shock-haired  Swede,  had 
built  up  through  arduous  struggle,  beginning  with  one  wagon — 

Hartman  saw  me  through  the  window,  and  beckoned  vigorously 
for  me  to  step  in.  .  . 

** — ^just  got  home  from  another  hobo-trip,  Johnny.'"' 

"You're  almost  right,  Mr.  Hartman." 

*'A  pause.  .  . 

" — ^been  to  see  your  father  yet?" 

"No,  sir,  I'm  on  the  way  there  now  .  .  just  arrived  this  minute, 
on  the  train  from  New  York." 

"I'm  glad  I  caught  sight  of  you,  then,  to  prepare  you."  A  longer 
pause  .  .  mysteriously  embarrassing,  on  his  part. 

"I  have  something  to  tell  you  about  him  .  .  — guess  you're  old 
enough  to  stand  plain  talk  .  .  sit  down!" 

I  took  a  chair. 

"You  see,  it's  this  way,"  and  he  leaned  forward  and  put  his  hand 
on  my  knee  .  .  "it's  women — a  woman"  .  .  he  paused,  I  nodded  to 
him  to  go  on,  feeling  very  dramatic  and  important.  .  . 

"It's  Mrs.  Jenkins,  the  widow,  that  has  her  hooks  in  him  .  . 
around  where  he  boards  .  .  and,  to  be  frank  with  you,  he's  going  it 
so  strong  with  her  that  he's  sick  and  rundown  .  .  and  not  so  right, 
at  times,  up  here!"  and  Hartman  tapped  his  forehead  with  his  fore- 
finger significantly.   .   . 

*'Now,  you're  the  nearest  one  to  him  around  here,"  he  went  on, 
"and  I'll  tell  you  what  we  were  going  to  do  .  .  his  lodge,  of  which 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  209 

I'm  a  member,  was  going  to  give  him  a  trip,  to  separate  him  from 
her,  and  cure  him  .  .  you  come  back  just  pat.  .  . 

"Has  your  daddy  any  relatives  that  can  afford  to  entertain  him, 
out  in  the  West,  where  you  came  from?" 

"Yes,  one  of  my  uncles,  his  brother,  is  very  well  off,  and  would 
be  glad  to  take  him  in  .  .  in  fact  any  of  the  folks  back  home  would," 
my  voice  sounded  hollow  and  far  off  as  I  answered. 

"You're  a  pretty  smart  lad  .  .  do  you  want  to  go  back  with 
him  when  he  goes.?" 

"No,  Mr.  Hartman." 

"Well,  we  can  tip  the  porter  to  take  care  of  him  .  .  but  why 
don't  you  want  to  go  with  him,  we  will  foot  your  expenses.''" 

"I  have  other  things  to  do,"  I  answered  vaguely. 

He  gave  a  gesture  of  impatience.  .  . 

There  was  a  hush  in  the  house,  as  I  stepped  softly  up  the  stairs. 
The  catch  of  the  front  door  was  back.  .  . 

First  I  went  to  my  room  and  found  all  my  books  intact  .  .  in 
better  condition  even,  than  when  I  was  home  with  them  .  .  there 
was  not  a  speck  of  dust  anywhere.  Evidently  my  father  was  not 
too  sick  to  keep  the  place  clean  .  .  but  then,  I  meditated  he  would 
attend  to  that,  with  his  last  effort. 

My  books  were  my  parents,  my  relatives.  I  had  been  born  of 
them,  not  of  my  own  father  and  mother.  My  being  born  in  the 
flesh  was  a  mere  accident  of  nature.  My  father  and  mother  hap- 
pened to  be  the  vehicle. 

But  the  place  was  so  quiet  it  perturbed  me. 

"Pop!"  I  called,  going  toward  his  bed-room. 

The  door  leading  into  it  slowly  opened.  The  little,  dark  widow 
was  in  there  with  him. 

"Hush !  your  father  is  asleep." 

A  hatred  of  both  him  and  her  shot  up  quick  in  my  heart.  I  sensed 
their  abandonment  to  the  sheerly  physical,  till  it  took  in  their 
whole  horizon.  It  was  utterly  ignoble.  I  had  a  vision  of  all 
humanity,  living,  for  the  most  part,  merely  for  food  and  sex,  letting 
art  and  poetry  and  beauty  and  adventure  pass  by,  content  if  they 
only  achieved  the  bare  opportunity  of  daily  wallowing  in  their  mire. 

I  was  bad  and  mean  enough,  but  the  conception  of  a  single  poem 
in  my  brain,  till  it  found  birth  on  paper,  was,  I  swore,  bigger  and 


210  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

finer  than  all  this  world-mess  at  Its  best.    Also  there  was  In  me  some- 
what the  thwarted,  sinister  hatred  of  the  celibate.  .  . 

"You  mustn't  bother  your  father  now,"  little  Mrs.  Jenkins  Inter- 
posed, as  I  started  in,  "you  must  let  him  rest  for  awhile,  and  not 
wake  him." 

Through  the  door,  half  open,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  hollow,  wax- 
white  face  .  .  he  looked  as  if  all  the  blood  had  been  let  out  of  his 
body,  little  by  little.  The  little,  pretty,  dark  woman  looked  like  a 
crafty  animal  .  .  there  was  a  beady  shine  of  triumph,  which  she 
could  not  conceal,  In  her  eyes,  as  she  opposed  my  entering.  I  smelt 
the  pungent  smell  of  her  physical  womanhood.  There  was  a  plump- 
ness about  her  body,  a  ruddiness  to  her  lips,  that  gave  me  the 
phantasy  that,  perhaps,  the  moment  before,  she  had  drunk  of  my 
father's  blood,  and  that  she  was  preventing  me  from  going  in  to 
where  he  lay  till  a  certain  tiny,  red  puncture  over  his  jugular  vein 
had  closed. 

"You  forget,  Mrs.  Jenkins,  that  he  Is  my  father." 

"You  shan't  go  In  .  .  please,  Johnnie  .  .  let  him  sleep  just  a 
little  longer  .   .   as  soon  as  he  wakes  he  asks  for  another  drink !" 

"And  who  put  him  in  this  state?"  I  charged  directly,  vividly 
remembering  what  Har^man  had  said.   .  . 

"What,  you  don't  mean  to  insinuate?" — she  gasped. 

"I  mean  nothing,  only  that  I  have  come  home  to  take  care  of  my 
father,  till  his  lodge  takes  charge  of  him,  and  that,  for  the  present, 
I  want  you  to  please  leave  me  alone  with  him." 

Her  small,  black  pupils  dilated  angrily.  But  she  did  not  press 
the  point  of  her  staying.  She  had  put  her  hand  on  my  arm  cajol- 
ingly,  but  I  had  shook  It  off  with  such  evident  disgust — founded 
partly  and  secretly  on  a  horror  of  physical  attraction  for  her — 
that  drew  my  morbid,  starved  nature 

"Very  well !"  .  .  but  I'll  be  back  this  afternoon,  early.  When 
he  wakes  up  and  asks  for  a  drink  of  whiskey  .  .  starts  out  to  get 
one  .  .  draw  him  a  glass  of  water  from  the  faucet,  and  take  your 
oath  that  it's  whiskey  .   .  he'll  believe  you  and  drink  it !" 

And  she  departed,  an  odor  of  strong  perfume  in  her  wake. 

Had  this  planet  of  earth  been  populated  from  without?  .  .  there 
were   evidently   two   races   on  It — the    race   of   men — the   race    of 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  211 

women — men  had  voyaged  in  from  some  other  world  in  space  ,  . 
women  had  done  the  like  from  their  world  .  .  to  this  world,  alien 
to  both  of  them.  And  here  a  monstrous  thing  had  brought  them 
together  like  an  interlocking  fungus — their  sex-union  .  .  a  function 
that  monstrously  held  together  two  different  species  of  animals 
that  should  not  even  be  on  meeting  terms. 

Thus  my  morbid  fancy  ran,  as  I  entered  slowly  my  father's  room. 

He  slept. 

On  a  chair  by  his  bed  lay  a  copy  of  Hamlet,  his  favourite  Shakes- 
pearean play.  I  picked  it  up,  read  in  it,  waiting  for  him  to  wake, 
while  he  breathed  laboriously. 

I  became  absorbed  in  the  play  .  .  I  must  write  a  poem,  some  time, 
called  "Hamlet's  Last  Soliliquy." 


My  father  was  awake. 

I  did  not  know  how  long  he  had  been  so,  for  his  breathing  had 
not  changed  and  the  only  difference  from  his  sleeping  state  was  that 
his  eyes  stared,  wide  and  glassy,  at  the  ceiling,  as  if  they  compre- 
hended nothing. 

A  feeling  of  horror  crept  over  my  body.  This  was  more  than  I 
had  counted  on  .  .  my  father,  helpless  on  his  back  and  his  wits 
off  gathering  wool.   .   . 

"Father !"  I  put  my  hand  on  a  talon  of  his. 

He  turned  his  head  slightly.    Smiled  vacuously. 

"Father !" 

A  perturbation  clouded  his  eyes  .  .  that  painful  struggle  toward 
comprehension  observed  in  an  infant's  face. 

"Who  are  you?    What  do  you  want?" 

"I'm  your  son — Johnnie!  .  .  and  I've  come  back  to  take  care  of 
you." 

"Johnnie  is  away  .  .  far  off  .  .  on  the  sea  .  .  in  a  ship." 

And  he  sighed  and  turned  his  face  to  the  wall  as  if  the  thought 
troubled  him,  and  he  wished  to  dismiss  it.  Then,  in  a  moment,  he 
whirled  about,  changed  and  furious.  He  rose  to  a  sitting  posture 
.  .  swung  his  legs  out,  bringing  the  bed-clothes  a-wry  with  him.   .   . 

"You  are  an  impostor  .  .  you  are  not  my  son  .  .  I  tell  you  again, 
he  is  away  .  .  has  been  away  for  years  .  .  as  long  as  I  can  remem- 
ber .  .  perhaps  he  is  dead  .  .  you  are  an  impostor." 


212  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

He  leaped  up,  full  of  madness,  and  seized  hold  of  me. 

"Stop,  Father,  what  are  you  trying  to  do?" 

As  I  grappled  with  him,  trying  to  keep  him  from  hurting  me — 
and  he  was  quite  strong,  for  all  his  emaciation — the  horror  of  my 
situation  made  me  sick  at  the  stomach,  quite  sick  .  .  and  my  mind 
went  ridiculously  back  to  the  times  when  my  father  and  I  had  eaten 
oyster-fries  together  .  .  "that  is  the  only  thing  you  and  this  man 
have  in  common  .  .  oyster-fries,"  remarked  my  mind  to  me.  All 
the  while  I  was  pinning  his  wrists  in  my  grasp  .  .  re-pinning  them 
as  he  frantically  wrested  them  loose  .  .  swearing  and  heaping 
obscenities  on  my  head  .  .  all  the  while,  I  thought  of  those  oyster- 
fries  .  .  we  had  saved  up  a  lard-tin  full  of  bacon  grease  to  fry 
them  in  .  .  and  fry  after  fry  had  been  sizzled  to  a  rich,  cracker- 
powdered  brown  in  that  grease  .  .  a  peculiar  smell  waxed  in  the 
kitchen,  however  .  .  which  we  could  never  trace  to  its  source  .  . 
"a  dead  rat  somewhere,  maybe,"  suggested  my  father. 

When  we  had  used  a  third  of  the  bacon  grease,  the  dead  rat's  foot 
stood  up  .   .   out  of  that  can. 

We  discharged  the  contents  of  our  stomachs  in  the  sink. 

This  was  the  ridiculous  incident  that  possessed  my  imagination 
while  I  struggled  with  my  father. 

I  had  my  father  over  on  the  bed.  He  fought  to  a  sitting  posture 
again  .  .  got  his  finger  in  my  eye  and  made  me  see  a  whorl  of  danc- 
ing sparks.  With  irritation  and  a  curse  .  .  then  both  laughing 
hysterically  and  sobbing  .  .  I  bore  him  back  to  his  pillow.  .  . 

The  strength  had  gone  entirely  out  of  him  .  .  now  it  came  into 
his  mind  that  I  was  there  trying  to  rob  or  kill  him. 

*'Spare  me,  spare  me!"  he  pleaded,  "you  can  have  everything 
in  the  house  .  .  only  don't  kill  me !    My  God !" 

"Good  Christ !"  I  groaned,  as  he  beat  upward,  fighting  again. 

I  let  him  rise,  almost  palsied  with  horror. 

He  perched  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  exhausted, — began  groping 
with  one  hand,  in  the  air,  idly. 

"What  is  it?    What  do  you  want?" 

"Give  me  my  pants !  I  don't  trust  you.  I  want  to  go  to  the  cor- 
ner and  get  a  drink  .  .  give  me  my  pants !" 

"Pop,  look  at  me  .  .  stop  this  nonsense  .  .  you're  safe  .  .  I'm 
your  son,  Johnnie !" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  213 

"That's  all  very  well,"  he  assented  with  an  air  of  reserved 
cunning. 

"Please  believe  me,"  I  pleaded. 

**A11  right  .  .  you  are  my  son  .  .  only  don't  kill  me,"  he 
responded  craftily. 

"Father !  .  .  good  God !" 

He  perceived  by  the  emotion  of  my  last  exclamation,  that  at  least  I 
was  not  ill-disposed  toward  him. 

He  clutched  at  the  advantage. 

"Promise  to  take  care  of  me  till  Johnnie  comes — he's  just  around 
the  corner,"  slyly. 

"Pop,  what  is  it  you  want?    What  can  I  do  for  you?" 

*'A  curious  greed  flickered  in  his  eyes. 

"Get  me  a  drink !" 

"All  right !     I'll  get  it  for  you !" 

"Let  me  think!  There's  none  in  the  house  .  .  none  left,  Emily 
said." 

"But  I  brought  some  with  me  .  .  wait  a  minute."  I  went  into  the 
kitchen,  turned  on  the  tap  softly,  filled  a  glass  half  full  of  water, 
brought  it  back  to  him. 

"Here  it  is." 

"I  don't  like  the  colour  of  it." 

"Why,  it  has  a  nice,  rich  colour." 

"What  is  it?  —Scotch?" 

"Yes." 

He  sipped  of  it.  Made  a  rueful  face.  "I  don't  like  the  taste  of 
it  .  .  it  tastes  too  much  like  water,"  he  commented,  with  a  quiet, 
grave,  matter-of-fact  grimace  that  set  me  laughing,  in  spite  of 
myself.  .  , 

"Drink  it  down !    I  swear  it's  all  right." 

He  tossed  off  the  water. 

"Give  me  my  pants.     I  want  to  get  out  of  here." 

"Why,  wasn't  that  whiskey  that  I  just  gave  you?" 

"Yes,  yes  .  .  but  not  very  good  stuff.  I  know  where  I  can  get 
better." 

Humouring  him,  I  helped  him  into  his  trousers  .  .  painfully  he 
put  on  his  shirt,  neatly  tied  his  tie,  while  I  steadied  him.  This 
manual  function  seemed  to  better  his  condition  straightway.  He 
startled  me  by  turning  to  me  with  a  look  of  amused  recognition  in 


214  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

his  eyes.     He  was  no  longer  off  his  head,  just  a  very  sick  man. 

**Well,  Johnnie,  so  you're  back  again?" 

"Yes,  Pop — back  again!" 

"What  are  j^ou  going  to  do  next?"  he  queried  wearily,  seating 
himself  laboriously  in  an  armchair. 

"Stay,  and  take  care  of  you !" 

"That  will  be  unnecessary.  I  have  had  a  rather  severe  attack 
of  malaria  .  .  that  is  all  .  .  left  me  rather  weak  .  .  but  now  I'm 
getting  over  it  .  .  had  to  take  a  lot  of  whiskey  and  quinine,  though, 
to  break  it  up ! 

"Malaria  comes  on  me,  every  spring,  you  know  .  .  harder  than 
usual,  this  spring,  though  .  .  it's  made  me  dotty  .  .  made  me  say 
things,  at  times,  I'm  afraid!" 

We  sat  silent. 

" — need  any  money?"  he  was  reaching  into  his  pocket. 

"No,  I  don't  want  a  cent !" 

"Then  take  this  five  dollar  bill  and  go  around  to  the  corner  saloon 
and  buy  me  a  pint  .  .  what  I  had  is  all  used  up,  and  the  chills  are 
not  quite  out  of  me  yet." 

On  the  way  to  the  saloon  I  stopped  at  Hartman's  express  office 
.  .  related  the  foregoing  story.  .  . 

*'H'm !  yes !  .  .  I  see !"  .  .  Hartman  braced  his  thumbs  together 
meditatively,  " — from  what  you  say  it's  pretty  serious  .  .  some- 
thing will  have  to  be  done  this  very  day.   .  . 

"Yes,  go  and  get  the  pint  .  .  let  him  have  a  drink  of  it.  And — 
and  keep  close  to  him  all  the  time  .  .  don't,"  he  added  significantly, 
*'leave  the  lady  in  question  in  the  room  alone  with  him  for  a  single 
moment." 

•  •••*•• 

"Have  you  got  the  pint,  Son?" 

"Yes,  Father.     Here  it  is  .  .  but  just  a  little!" 

"I  know  what  I'm  doing!" 

He  took  most  of  it  down  at  a  gulp. 

Noticing  the  anxious  look  in  my  eyes. 

"Don't  worry  about  me,  Johnnie.  I  can  take  it  or  leave  it  alone 
.  .  — always  could !" 

Before  Mrs.  Jenkins  could  come  back,  Hartman  anticipated  her 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  215 

with  a  nurse  and  a  doctor.  As  Mrs.  Jenkins  came  in,  chagrin  and 
indignation  showed  on  her  face.  But  she  bowed  perforce  to  the 
situation.     She  was  too  wise  not  to. 

**His  lodge-brothers  are  taking  care  of  Mr.  Gregory  now,  Mrs. 
Jenkins,"  explained  Mr.  Hartman  suavely,  warning  her  off,  at  the 
same  time,  with  a  severe,  understanding  look  in  his  eyes. 

She  dropped  her  eyelashes — though  with  a  bit  of  instinctive 
coquetry  in  them — under  his  straight-thrusting  glance. 

"Well,  I  suppose  professional  care  would  be  better  than  anything 
I  could  do  for  him  .  .  but,"  sweetly,  "I'll  drop  in  from  time  to  time 
to  see  if  there's  any  little  thing  I  can  do." 

Deprived  of  the  loving  care  of  Emily  Jenkins,  though  he  called 
for  her  many  times,  my  father  mended  his  condition  rapidly.  And, 
after  a  long,  mysterious  conference  with  Hartman  and  other  mem- 
bers of  his  fraternal  order,  he  consented  to  allow  himself  to  be  sent 
West  on  a  visit.  But  not  till  they  had  promised  to  keep  his  job 
as  foreman  in  the  Composite  Works  open  for  him,  till  he  was  well 
enough  to  come  back. 

After  I  had  seen  my  father  off,  I  stayed  in  the  silent  rooms  only 
long  enough  to  pack  up  my  books,  which  I  left  in  care  of  Hartman. 

I  had  at  last  arrived  at  a  definite  plan  of  action. 

My  grandfather  was  transacting  some  sort  of  business  in  Wash- 
ington, as  my  uncle,  Jim,  had  informed  me.  There  he  was  living 
in  affluence,  married  again,  in  his  old  age  .  .  just  like  his  former 
wife. 

I  had  evolved  a  scheme  which  seemed  to  me  both  clever  and  feas- 
ible, by  which  to  extract  from  him  a  few  hundred  or  a  thousand  dol- 
lars with  which  to  prosecute  my  studies  further,  and  enter,  eventu- 
ally, say,  Princeton  or  Harvard  .  .  perhaps  Oxford. 

I  found  my  grandfather  holding  forth  in  a  swell  suite  of  offices 
in  the  business  district  of  Washington. 

Near  his  great  desk,  with  a  little  table  and  typewriter,  sat  a  girl, 
very  pretty — he  would  see  to  that!  .  .  evidently  his  stenographer 
and  private  secretary. 

As  I  stood  by  the  railing,  she  observed  me  coldly  once  or  twice, 
looking  me  over,  before  she  thrust  her  pencil  in  her  abundant  hair 
and  sauntered  haughtily  over  to  see  what  I  was  after. 


216  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Despite  the  fact  that  I  informed  her  who  I  was,  with  eyes  imper- 
sonal as  the  dawn  she  replied  that  she  would  see  if  Mr.  Gregory 
could  see  me  .  .  that  at  present  he  was  busy  with  a  conference  in 
the  adjoining  room. 

I  sat  and  waited  .  .  dusty  and  derelict,  in  the  spick-and-span 
office,  where  hung  the  old-fashioned  steel  engravings  on  the  wall, 
of  Civil  War  battles,  of  generals  and  officers  seated  about  tables 
on  camp  stools, — bushy-bearded  and  baggy-trousered. 

Finally  my  grandfather  Gregory  walked  briskly  forth.  He  looked 
about,  first,  as  if  to  find  me.  His  eyes,  after  hovering  hawklike, 
settled,  in  a  grey,  level,  impersonal  glance,  on  me. 

"Come  in  here,"  he  bade,  not  even  calling  me  by  name. 

I  stepped  inside,  trying  hard  to  be  bold.  But  his  precision  and 
appearance  of  keen  prosperity  and  sufficiency  made  me  act,  in  spite 
of  myself,  deprecative.  So  I  sat  there  by  him,  in  his  private  room, 
keying  my  voice  shrill  and  voluble  and  high,  as  I  always  do,  when 
I  am  not  sure  of  my  case.  And,  worse,  he  let  me  do  the  talking  .  . 
watching  me  keenly,  the  while. 

I  put  to  him  my  proposition  of  having  my  life  insured  in  his  name, 
that  I  might  borrow  a  thousand  or  so  of  him,  on  the  policy,  to  go 
to  college  with  .   .   . 

"Ah,  if  he  only  lets  me  have  what  I  ask,"  I  was  dreaming,  as 
I  pleaded,  "I'll  go  to  England  .  .  to  some  college  with  cool,  grey 
mediaeval  buildings  .  .  and  there  spend  a  long  time  in  the  quiet 
study  of  poetry  .  .  thinking  of  nothing,  caring  for  nothing  else." 

"No !  how  absurd !"  he  was  snapping  decisively.  I  came  to  from 
my  vision. 

"My  dear  Johnnie,  your  proposition  is  both  absurd  and " 

as  if  that  were  the  last  enormity "very  unbusinesslike !" 

"But  I  will  then  become  a  great  poet !  On  my  word  of  honour,  I 
will !  and  I  will  be  a  great  honour  to  the  Gregory  family !" 

He  shook  his  head.  He  rose,  standing  erect  and  slender,  like  a 
small  flagpole.  As  I  rose  I  towered  high  over  the  little-bodied, 
trim  man. 

"Come,  you  haven't  eaten  yet?" 

"No !" 

Well,  he  had  a  sort  of  a  heart,  after  all  .  .  some  family  feeling. 

Walking  slightly  ahead,  so  as  not  to  seem  to  be  in  my  company, 
old  Grandfather  Gregory  took  me  to  a — lunch  counter  .  .  bowing  to 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  217 

numerous  friends  and  acquaintances  on  the  way  .  .  once  he  stepped 
aside  to  a  hurried  conference,  leaving  me  standing  forlorn  and  soli- 
tary, like  a  scarecrow  in  a  field. 

I  grew  so  angry  at  him  I  could  hardly  bridle  my  anger  in. 

" — ^like  oyster  sandwiches?"  he  asked. 

He  didn't  even  wait  to  let  me  choose  my  own  food. 

"Two  oyster  sandwiches  and — a  cup  of  coffee,"  he  barked. 

While  I  ate  he  stepped  outside  and  talked  with  another  friend. 


"Good-bye,"  he  was  bidding  me,  extending  a  tiny  hand,  the  back 
of  it  covered  with  steel-coloured  hairs,  "you'd  better  go  back  up  to 
Jersey — ^just  heard  your  daddy  is  very  sick  there  .  .  he  might  need 
your  help." 

I  thought  cautiously.  Evidently  he  knew  nothing  of  my  father's 
having  been  sent  home  by  his  lodge.     I  affected  to  be  perturbed.  .  . 

"In  that  case — could  you — advance  me  my  fare  to  Haberf ord .'"' 

I'd  wangle  a  few  dollars  out  of  him. 

My  grandfather's  answer  was  a  silent,  granite  smile. 

" — just  want  to  see  what  you  can  cajole  out  of  the  old  man, 
eh?  No,  Johnnie — I'll  leave  you  to  make  your  way  back  in  the 
same  way  you've  made  your  way  to  Washington  .  .  from  all  acounts 
railroad  fare  is  the  least  of  your  troubles." 

My  whole  hatred  of  him,  so  carefully  concealed  while  I  thought 
there  was  some  hopes  of  putting  through  my  educational  scheme,  now 
broke  out 

"You" — I  began,  cursing.  .  . 

"I  knew  that's  the  way  you  felt  all  along  .  .  better  run  along 
now.  or  I'll  say  I  don't  know  you,  and  have  you  taken  up  for 
soliciting  alms." 


Before  nightfall  I  was  well  on  my  way  to  Philadelphia.  For  a 
while  I  resigned  myself  to  the  life  of  a  tramp.  I  hooked  up  with 
another  gang  of  hoboes,  in  the  outskirts  of  that  city,  and  taught 
them  the  plan  of  the  ex-cook  that  we'd  crowned  king  down  in 
Texas.  .  . 

I  kept  myself  in  reading  matter  by  filching  the  complete  works 


218  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

of  Sterne  (in  one  volume)  and  the  poetry  of  Milton — from  an  out- 
side stand  of  a  second  hand  book  store.  .  . 

— left  that  gang,  and  started  forth  alone  again.  I  became  a  walk- 
ing bum,  if  a  few  miles  a  day  constitutes  taking  that  appellation. 
I  walked  ahead  a  few  miles,  then  sat  down  and  studied  my  Milton, 
or  dug  deep  into  Tristram  Shandy,  Hungry,  I  went  up  to  farm- 
house or  backdoor  of  city  dwelling,  and  asked  for  food.   .   . 

•  •••••• 

I  found  myself  in  the  outskirts  of  Newark  again. 

I  took  my  Sterne  and  Milton  to  Breasted's,  hoping  to  trade  them 
for  other  books.  I  stood  before  the  outside  books,  on  the  stand, 
hesitating.  I  was,  for  the  moment,  ashamed  to  show  myself  to  "the 
perfesser,"  because  of  the  raggedness  that  I  had  fallen  into. 

While  I  was  hesitating,  a  voice  at  my  elbow 

"Any  books  I  can  show  you? any  special  book  you're  look- 
ing for?" 

The  voice  was  the  voice  of  the  tradesman,  warning  off  the  man 
unlikely  to  buy — but  it  was  the  familiar  voice  of  my  friend,  "the 
perfesser,"  just  the  same.  I  turned  and  smiled  into  his  face,  happy 
in  greeting  him,  losing  the  trepidation  my  rags  gave  me. 

"Why,  Johnnie  Gregory !"  he  shook  my  hand  warmly  as  if  I  were 
a  prince.    I  was  enchanted. 

"I  want  to  exchange  two  books  if  I  can — for  others !" 

"Come  right  into  the  back.  Breasted,  the  boss,  is  out  for  the 
day  .   .  I'm  having  my  lunch  sent  in,  won't  you  have  some  with  me?" 

He  acted  just  as  if  he  hadn't  noticed  my  dilapidation. 

I  said  I'd  gladly  share  his  lunch. 

He  drew  my  story  out  of  me, — the  story  of  my  life,  in  fact,  before 
the  afternoon  wore  to  dusk. 

•  •••••• 

"Do  you  think  I'm  crazy?"  I  asked  him. 

"No  .  .  far  from  it  .  .  "  adding  gently,  with  a  smile,  "some- 
times an  awful  fool,  though,  Johnnie — if  I  may  say  it." 

"Won't  you  stay  overnight?" 
"No,  thanks  just  the  same,  'Perfesser.'  " 

"I  have  room  enough  .  .  better  hang  around  a  few  days  and  look 
for  a  job  here." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  219 

"It's  too  near  Haberford." 

"But  I  know  you'd  take  a  couple  of  fresh  books,  if  I  gave  them 
to  you,  now  wouldn't  you?" 

My  eyes  lit  up  as  with  hunger. 

"This  Milton  and  Sterne  are  too  used-up  to  be  worth  a  nickel 
a-piece.  Maybe,  if  I'd  keep  them,  they  might  be  worth  something, 
some  day,  when  you're  famous,"  he  joked. 

"If  you  want  to  give  me  a  couple  of  books  .  .  how  about  this 
Keats  and  this  Ossian.''  I  want  the  Keats  for  myself.  It  will  renew 
my  courage.  And — the  Ossian — will  you  mail  that  book  on  for  me, 
to  Eos,  to  oldPfeiler?" 

I  had  told  him,  in  the  course  of  my  talking,  about  them  both. 

Pfeiler  used  often  to  talk  of  the  greatness  of  Ossian's  poetry  .  . 
and  how  he'd  like  to  possess  a  volume  of  it  again  .  .  that  is,  before 
he  grew  to  hate  me. 

Maybe  if  I  sent  him  the  book,  with  a  letter,  he  would  think  less 
harshly  of  me. 

I  tramped  through  New  England.  My  whole  life  had  settled  back 
into  tramping  .  .  only  my  Keats  remained.  I  read  and  re-read 
his  poems,  not  caring  to  write  a  line  myself. 

I  worked  as  a  dish-washer  or  pearl-diver  for  several  weeks  in 
Boston,  and  bought  a  very  cheap  second-hand  suit. 

I  shifted  my  mind  like  a  weather  vane  and  decided  against  ship- 
ping to  England,  with  the  forlorn  hope  of,  somehow  attending  Oxford 
or  Cambridge,  and  studying  English  literature  there.  My  old  ideal 
of  being  a  great  adventurer  and  traveller  had  vanished,  and,  in  its 
stead,  came  the  desire  to  live  a  quiet  life,  devoted  entirely  to  writing 
poetry,  as  the  poet  Gray  lived  his. 

I  drifted  inland  to  Concord,  a-foot,  as  a  pilgrim  to  the  town  where 
Emerson  and  Thoreau  had  lived.  I  was  happy  in  loitering  about  the 
haunts  of  Thoreau ;  in  sitting,  full  of  thought,  by  the  unhewn  granite 
tombstone  of  Emerson,  near  the  quiet  of  his  grave. 

Toward  evening  I  realised  that  I  had  gone  without  food  all 
day  .  . 

On  a  hill  mounting  up  toward  the  West,  outside  of  Concord,  I 
stopped  at  the  house  of  a  market-gardener  and  asked  for  something 


220  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

to  eat.     A  tottering  old  man  leaned  forward  through  the  half-open 
door.     He  asked  me  in,  and  set  before  me  a  plate  of  lukewarm  beans 
and  a  piece  of  jelly  roll.     But  he  delighted  the  tramp  in  me  by  set- 
ting before  me,  also,  a  cup  of  excellent,  hot,  strong  coffee. 
Afterward  when  he  asked  me  if  I  wanted  a  job,  I  said  yes. 
The  old  man  lit  my  way  upstairs  to  a  bed  in  the  attic. 
It  was  hardly  dawn  when  he  woke  me.  .  . 

A  breakfast  of  soggy  pancakes  and  more  beans,  which  his  equally 
aged  wife  had  prepared.  And  we  were  out  in  the  fields,  at  work. 
And  soon  his  wife  was  with  us,  working,  too. 

When  Sowerby,  this  market  gardener,  told  me  that  he  was  almost 
ninety  I  could  believe  him.  He  might  have  added  a  few  more  years, 
with  credence. 

He  went  actively  about  his  toil,  but  yet  shaky  like  a  bicycle  till  it 
fully  starts,  when  it  runs  the  steadier  the  more  it  is  speeded.  It 
was  work  that  kept  him  on  his  feet,  work  that  sustained  life  in  him. 
His  whole  life  and  pleasure  was  senseless  work. 

And  yet  he  was  not  a  bookless  man.  He  possessed  many  books, 
mostly  the  old  religious  classics.  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs,  Bax- 
ter's Sainfs  Rest,  Blair,  On  the  Grave  .  .  Jeremy  Taylor's 
Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dying,  that  gave  me  a  shock  almost 
of  painful  remembrance — Keats  had  read  the  latter  when  he  was 
dying  in  Rome  .  .  and  there  were  the  New  England  Divines,  the 
somber  Jonathan  Edwards  whose  sermon  on  the  day  of  doom  and 
the  tortures  of  hell  made  his  auditors  faint  .  .  I  thought  back  to 
the  terrifying  sermon  of  the  illiterate  negro  preacher  in  the  Texas 
jail. 

But  now  old  Sowerby  read  nothing.  "I  have  no  time  left  for  a 
book." 

I  never  met  the  old  man's  equal  for  parsimony.  *'The  last  man 
• — the  man  who  worked  for  me  before  you  came — he  was  a  Pole, 
who  could  hardly  speak  English.  He  left  because  he  didn't  like 
the  food  .  .  yes,  that  was  what  he  had  the  impudence  to  announce 
.  .  and  you  can  see  that  I  am  not  so  bad  .  .  don't  I  give  you  a 
slice  of  jelly  roll  with  your  beans,  every  other  night?" 

I  assented  to  what  the  old  man  said.  He  had  been  the  milkman 
to  the  Emerson  and  Thoreau  families,  and,  in  that  capacity,  had 
known  both  the  great  men.  And  I  was  more  eager  to  hear  what 
he  had  to  say  about  them,  than  to  draw  wages  for  my  work. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  221 

But  he  had  little  to  say  about  them,  except  that  they  were  as 
great  fools  as  the  outside  world  esteemed  them  great  men. 

"They  talked  a  lot  about  work  and  a  man's  being  independent, 
earning  his  living  with  his  own  hands,  from  the  soil,  but, — did  they 
follow  their  teachings?  .   .   that's  the  test.   .   . 

"And  I  saw  them,  often,  strolling  out  a-field  together,  talking 
and  talking  a  lot  of  nonsense  about  philosophy,  and  going  on,  regard- 
less, across  their  neighbours'  crops." 

And  that  was  the  only  information  I  could  get  of  these  famous 
men  from  their  milkman. 

Sowerby  kept  pigs  under  the  barn.  For  economy's  sake  the  cows' 
dung  was  shovelled  down  to  them.  And  over  them  the  outhouse 
was  also  built,  so  that  our  human  efforts  might  not  be  wasted.  .  . 

One  night,  despite  a  hard  day's  work,  I  could  not  sleep.  So  I 
went  out  on  the  hillside  to  enjoy  the  moonlight. 

On  my  way  back  to  the  attic  I  observed  a  light  in  the  barn.  I 
stopped  in  to  see  who  was  there.  It  was  Sowerby,  cleaning  out  the 
stable,  to  the  plain  disgust  of  the  horses  and  cows. 

I  asked  him  if  anything  was  the  matter.  I  learned  that  he  had 
risen  in  the  middle  of  the  night  and  gone  to  work  .  .  because  that 
was  his  happiness,  his  only  happiness. 

•  •••••• 

Driven  by  an  impulse  of  distaste  for  him  and  his  house  and  mar- 
ket garden,  I  started  to  leave  in  secret.  What  money  was  coming 
to  me  for  my  two  weeks'  work  I  did  not  care  about — in  the  face  of 
the  curious  satisfaction  it  would  give  me  just  to  quit,  and  to  have 
the  old  man  call  up  to  me  and  find  me  missing.  .  . 

I  heard  him  pottering  back  to  his  bedroom  again.  .  .  I  waited 
till  he  was  quiet  and  back  to  sleep — then  I  stole  forth  in  the  quiet 
moonlight  near  dawn. 

It  gave  me  a  pleasure  to  vanish  like  smoke.  I  thought  of  the 
time  when  I  had  that  job  plowing  in  Southern  California;  that  time 
I  had  driven  the  horses  to  the  further  end  of  the  field,  and  left 
them  standing  there  under  the  shade  of  a  tree  and  then  made  off, 
wishing  to  shout  and  sing  for  the  sheer  happiness  of  freedom  from 
responsibility  and  regular  work. 

Each  time  I  have  made  off  that  way,  from  a  multitude  of  varying 


222  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

employments,  it  has  not  been,  surely,  to  the  detriment  of  my  suc- 
cessive employers.  I  have  always  decamped  with  wages  still 
owing  me. 

•  •••••• 

I  swung  a  scythe  for  a  week  for  another  Yankee  farmer,  on  a 
marsh  where  the  machine  couldn't  be  driven  in — ^which  I  was  informed 
was  King  Phillip's  battle  ground. 

I  visited  the  inn  where  Longfellow  was  supposed  to  have  gotten 
his  inspiration  for  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn. 

I  must  see  all  the  literary  landmarks,  even  those  where  I  con- 
sidered the  authors  that  had  caused  the  places  to  be  celebrated,  as 
dull  and  third  rate.  .  . 

With  gathering  power  in  me  grew  my  desire  to  attend  college.  I 
Would  tramp,  as  I  was  doing,  through  the  country,  and  end  up  at 
some  western  university  for  the  fall  term. 

•  •••••• 

The  art  workers'  community  lay  in  my  way  at  Eos. 

I  dropped  off  a  freight,  one  morning,  in  the  Eos  yards.  .  . 

The  gladdest  to  see  me  again  was  the  Buddhist,  Pfeiler.  He 
rushed  up  to  me,  in  the  dining  hall,  that  night,  and  took  both  my 
hands  in  his  .  .  thanking  me  for  my  kind  thought  of  him  in  send- 
ing him  my  Ossian  .  .  avowing  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  in  his 
opinion  of  me  and  asking  my  indulgence  .  .  for  he  was  old  and  a 
failure  .   .  and  I  was  young  and  could  still  look  forward  to  success. 

My  unexpected  dropping-in  at  Eos  created  quite  a  stir. 

Spalton  welcomed  me  back,  and  stood,  that  evening,  before  the 
fire  in  the  sitting  room,  with  his  arm  about  my  shoulder  .  .  even 
as  he  did  so  I  remembered  the  picture  taken  of  him  and  the  cele- 
brated poet  L'Estrange,  together  .  .  their  arms  about  each  other's 
shoulders  .  .  and  the  current  Eos  proverb,  that  Spalton  always 
quarrelled  not  long  after  with  anyone  about  whose  shoulder  he  first 
cast  his  arm. 

Already  a  change  was  manifest  in  the  little  community.  Tabled 
off  by  themselves  sat  the  workers  and  the  folk  of  the  studios,  that 
night.  While  the  guests  who  stayed  at  the  inn  occupied  separate 
tables. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  223 

And  there  were  many  secret  complaints  about  a  woman  they 
referred  to  as  "Dorothy"  .  .  Dorothy  had  done  this  .  .  Dorothy 
had  done  that  .  .  Dorothy  would  be  the  ruination  of  "the  shop" 
.  .  it  would  have  been  better  if  she  had  never  shown  up  at  the  Eos 
Studios.  .  . 

I  asked  who  was  Dorothy.   .   . 

"Don't  you  know  .  .  we  thought  you  did  .  .  Spalton's  new  wife 
.  .  the  one  his  first  wife  got  a  divorce  from  him  for?" 

And  I  heard  the  story,  part  of  which  I  knew,  but  not  the  final 
details. 

Spalton's  first  wife  had  been  an  easy-going,  amiable  creature  .  . 
fair  and  pretty  in  a  soft,  female  way  .  .  a  teacher  in  the  local 
Sunday  school  .  .  one  who  accepted  all  the  conventions  as  they  were 
.  .  who  could  not  understand  anyone  not  conforming  to  them  .  , 
life  was  easier  and  more  comfortable  that  way.   .   . 

Spalton's  originality  and  genius  would  in  the  end  have  of  itself 
produced  a  rupture  between  them  .  .  few  women  are  at  home  with 
genius,  much  as  they  clasp  their  hands  in  ecstasy  over  it,  as  viewed 
on  the  lecture  and  concert  platform.  .  . 

But  the  wedge  that  drove  them  apart  was  entered  when  his  first 
wife,  Anne,  brought  into  their  married  life,  Dorothy,  a  fellow 
teacher,  a  visiting  friend. 

Dorothy  was  so  thin  as  to  be  stringy  of  body.  She  had  a  sharp 
hatchet-face,  eyes  with  the  colour  of  ice  in  them  .  .  a  cold,  blue- 
grey. 

She  was  a  woman  of  culture,  yet  at  the  same  time  she  was  pos- 
sessed of  a  great  instinct  for  organisation  and  business  enterprise — 
just  what  was  needed  for  the  kind  of  thing  Spalton  was  trying  to 
inaugurate  at  Eos.  She  fell  in  readily  with  the  Master's  schemes 
.  .  even  with  his  price-tags  on  objects  of  art,  his  egregious  over- 
valuation of  hand  illumined  books  .  .  which  his  wife,  with  old- 
fashioned  honesty,  rebuked  him  for. 

An  affinity  of  like-mindedness  grew  up  between  Spalton  and  this 
intense,  homely  woman,  Dorothy  .  .  whose  face,  like  that  of  all 
clever,  homely  women,  grew  to  a  beauty  in  his  eyes,  that  mere  beauty 
which  plastic  form  can  never  attain. 

There  was  a  local  busybody  of  a  minister,  and  it  was  he  who  first 
intimated  to  the  then  Mrs.  Spalton  that  her  dear  and  intimate  friend 
was  betraying  her.  .  . 


224  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

There  followed  the  usual  spying  and  publicity  .  .  Mrs.  Spalton 
won  her  divorce.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

But  this  was  after  several  years.  Long  before  the  divorce  was 
granted  John  and  Dorothy  were  aware  of  a  tangible  fruit  of  their 
love.  .  I  had  often  wondered  why  the  Master  so  ardently,  so  often, 
wrote  eloquently  in  defense  of  the  superior  qualities  of  illigitimate 
children.  .  . 

Dorothy  bore  their  child  .  .  a  girl  .  .  and  went  away  to  teach 
in  a  smart  school  somewhere  in  the  East,  under  an  assumed  name.  .  . 

Now,  after  many  years,  Spalton  and  she  married. 

I  saw  in  the  sitting  room  a  wonderful  girl.  She  had  shining, 
abundant  hair,  and  a  face  rendered  superlatively  beautiful  by  the 
glowing  of  vivacity,  understanding,  feminine  vitality  behind  it  and 
through  it,  like  a  lamp  held  up  within.  She  was  absorbed  in  the  new 
exhibit  of  Gresham's  that  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  guest  room  .  . 
she  wore  a  short,  bouncing,  riding  skirt,  and  carried  a  quirt  in 
her  hand. 

I  walked  up  to  her,  fascinated.  Without  letting  her  know  who 
I  was  I  quoted  Poe's  To  Helen  to  her.  She  stood,  smiling  sweetly, 
as  if  it  were  the  most  usual  thing  in  the  world,  to  have  a  lean,  wild- 
faced  stranger  address  her  with  a  poem. 

"That's  the  way  I  feel  about  you !"  I  ended. 

She  gave  a  lovely  laugh  .  .  held  out  both  her  hands,  dropping 
the  quirt  on  the  floor  .  .  took  my  hands  and  leaned  back  gaily, 
like  a  child. 

*'0h,  I  know  who  you  are  .  .  you're  Razorre  .  .  father  wrote 
me  a  lot  about  you  .  .  when  I  lived  East  .  .  you  were  one  of  his 
pet  *nuts' !" 

We  sat  there  and  conversed  a  long  time.  She  talked  of  Socrates 
and  Plato  as  if  she  had  broken  bread  with  them  .  .  she  discussed 
science,  history,  art  as  if  wisdom  and  understanding  were  nearer  her 
desire  than  anything  else.  .  . 

She  was  the  child  of  "John"  and  Dorothy. 

Again  Spalton  asked  me  to  stay,  "we  need  a  poet  for  Eos !" 
But  I  insisted  that  I  must  go  on  and  acquire  a  college  educa- 
tion .  .  which  he  maintained  would  be  a  hindrance,  not  a  help — 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  225 

"they  will  iron  you  out,  and  make  you  a  decent  member  of  society — 
and  then,  Razorre,  God  help  the  poet  in  you  .  .  poets  and  artists 
should  never  be  decent  .  .  only  the  true  son  of  Ishmael  can  ever 
write  or  paint,"  -he  waved. 


There  came  to  the  artworkers  one  day  a  young  Southern  woman, 
a  six  months'  widow  .  .  she  was  gentle  and  lily-coloured  and  lovely. 
She  had  great,  swimming,  blue  eyes,  a  sensitive  red  bow  of  a 
mouth  .  .  and  the  lashes  of  her  eyes  lay  far  down  on  her  cheeks. 
She  was  the  first  woman  I  had  met  who  approximated  my  poet's 
ideal  of  what  a  woman  should  be. 

I  was  working  for  Spalton  during  my  stay,  which  I  meant  to 
make  a  brief  one.  I  was  shovelling  coal  for  him,  and  firing  a 
furnace. 

Wash  as  I  might,  I  could  not  remove  a  faint  blackness  that  clung 
to  the  edges  of  my  eyes.  This  made  my  eyes  glow  and  seem  larger 
than  they  were.  On  such  an  extraneous  and  whimsical  exterior 
circumstance  hinged  the  young  widow's  interest  in  me. 

And  I  decided  that  I'd  stay  a  little  longer  at  th'e  Eos  Studios  .  . 
all  winter,  if  she  stayed  all  winter.  And  I  ho  longer  asked  for  an 
easier  job.  For  I  wanted  my  eyes  to  remain  large-seeming,  since, 
half  in  jest,  she  admired  their  present  appearance. 

She  manifested  a  close  and  affectionate  friendship  for  me,  and 
all  day  long  all  I  thought  of,  as  I  kept  the  furnace  going,  was  the 
evening  after  dinner,  when  I  could  sit  close  by  her  reading  poetry  in 
a  low  voice  to  her. 

I  leaned  over  her  on  every  pretext  to  smell  her  hair, — her  body, 
through  her  low-necked  dress — to  breathe  in  giddily  that  delicate 
fragrance  that  emanates  from  the  bodies  of  beautiful  women,  as 
perfume  from  flowers. 

Once,  in  spite  of  my  timidity,  I  dared  place  my  arm  about  her 
shoulders,  there  in  the  dark.  There  was  a  lecture  on  over  in  the 
"chap.el"  and  mostly  everybody  had  gone  to  it.  Spalton,  in  pass- 
ing through  where  we  sat  together,  asked  her  if  she  was  coming. 
"No,  she  was  too  tired."  She  remained  sitting  by  me,  Spalton  shot 
me  a  glance  of  scarcely  concealed  resentment  and  went  on.  We  were 
left  alone. 

"She  began  telling  me  of  her  deceased  husband  .  .  of  their  devotion 


226  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

to  each  other  .  .  she  applied  a  dainty  thing  of  lace  to  her  eyes, 
pausing  a  moment.  .  . 

"John?  may  I  call  you  by  your  name,  not  by  the  odious  name 
they  have  for  you  here?  .  ." 

She  leaned  her  head  against  my  shoulder. 

"Johnnie,  you  are  a  fine,  sensitive  soul,  and  I  know  you'll  be  a 
great  poet  some  day  .  .  but  why  don't  these  people  take  you  more 
seriously? 

**I  think  it  must  be  your  childlikeness  .  .  and  your  spirit  of 
horse-play,  that  breaks  through  at  the  most  inopportune  moments, 
that  encourages  these  fools  to  treat  you  with  levity."  .   . 

"Dear  woman,"  I  began,  "dearest  woman,"  and  my  throat  bunched 
queerly  so  that  I  could  not  speak  further. 

She  stroked  my  hair.   .  . 

"How  old  are  you?" 

"Twenty-three." 

"I  am  just  a  year  younger." 

"May  I  kiss  you  ?"  I  asked,  stumblingly. 

"Yes,  Johnnie,  you  may  kiss  me"  .   .  . 

"Why,  you  dear  child,  you  .  .  you  kiss  just  like  a  small  boy  .  ." 
in  a  lower  voice,  "can  it  be  possible  that  you,  with  all  your  tramp- 
ing, your  knowledge  of  life  in  books,  of  people  ? — " 

I  bent  my  head,  ashamed,  silently  acknowledging  my  inexperience 
of  women. 

"No,  it's  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of,  dearest  boy  .  .  I  think  you 
are  a  fine  man — to  have  gone  through  what  you  have — and  still " 

Her  voice  trailed  off.  She  put  her  arm  around  my  neck,  drew 
me  to  her,  and  kissed  me ! 

•  •••••• 

As  we  sat  close  together,  a  brooding  silence.  Then,  with  a  transi- 
tion of  thought  to  the  practical,  she  remarked  .  .  . 

"I'm  angry  with  these  people  .  .  they  over-charge  for  everything." 

"Just  think  of  it — I — I  feel  I  may  speak  of  it  to  you  .  .  we  seem 
to  have  come  so  near  to  each  other  to-night " 

"They  brought  my  laundry  back  yesterday,  and  for  one  piece  of 
silk  lingerie  I  was  charged — guess?" 

I  couldn't  imagine  how  much. 

"Seventy-five  cents — think  of  that!" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  227 

As  the  Eoltes  came  tramping  back  from  the  lecture,  they  found 
us  still  seated  there.  At  the  first  footstep  we  had  swiftly  moved 
apart. 

I  had  been  half-reclining,  my  head  in  her  lap,  strangely  soothed 
and  happy  as  she  ran  her  fingers  through  my  hair.  For  a  long 
time  neither  of  us  had  said  a  word. 

Now  I  sat  apart  from  her,  awkward  and  wooden. 

Spalton  did  not  speak,  inclined  his  head  icily,  as  he  strode  by. 

"He's  mad  because  I  didn't  come  to  his  talk,"  she  whispered. 

"I  see  my  finish,"  I  replied. 

Now,  Spalton  was  as  much  in  love  with  Dorothy,  his  second  wife, 
as  I  have  ever  known  a  man  to  be  in  love  with  a  woman.  But  that 
could  not  entirely  exclude  his  jealousy  over  my  sympathetic  relation 
with  the  "Southern  Lady,"  as  the  artworkers  termed  her.  And 
he  feared  for  her  on  another  score.  She  was,  to  use  a  constantly 
recurring  phrase  of  the  Master's,  whenever  he  wished  to  describe 
anyone  as  being  wealthy,  "lousy  with  money,"  and  he  suspected, 
not  without  good  cause,  that  I  would  warn  her  against  paying 
exorbitant  prices  for  books  and  objects  of  art.  .  . 

One  night  I  was  the  cause  of  an  accident  which  gave  him  a 
handle  to  seize  on. 

We  were  having  a  musicale.  A  new  musician  had  come  to  Eos. 
The  former  Eos  musician,  Von  Hammer,  the  father  of  the  prodigy 
vvho  played  the  piano,  had  quarrelled  with  the  Master  and  had  retired 
to  Buffalo.  Where,  after  a  brief  struggle  as  teacher  of  music,  he 
had  turned  to  playing  for  the  movies.  It  must  have  nearly  slain 
the  man,  for  he  was  a  sincere  artist,  a  lover  of  classical  music  .  . 
and  now  compelled  to  play  ragtime  and  popular  melodies  for  a 
living. 

All  that  I  held  of  him,  despite  myself,  was  an  unkind  remembrance 
— his  breath  had  been  charnel-foul,  and  always,  when  discussing 
anything,  he  insisted  on  taking  the  lapel  of  his  listener's  coat  and 
talking  directly  into  his  nose.   .  . 

But  his  successor  was  playing  at  an  introductory  musicale.  .  . 

A  tall,  alert,  dark  young  man  .  .  Italian-dark  .  .  his  eyes  shone 

behind  his  gold-rimmed  glasses,  swimming  large  and  distorted  under 


228  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  magnification  of  the  lenses  .  .  his  lips  were  full  and  red,  his 
moustache  of  a  heavy,  bristly  black  that  made  them  look  redder 
and  fuller  still,  almost  negroid. 

He  played  the  piano  with  violent,  expert  energy  .  .  his  favourite 
work  was  the  "Turkish  Patrol,"  which,  Spalton  exclaimed,  as  he 
applauded  vigorously,  he  would  now  adopt  as  the  Eos  anthem. 

The  drawing-room  was  crowded  .  .  a  few  visiting  celebrities  .  . 
Eoites,  too,  but  only  the  quasi-celebrities  among  them.  The  mass 
of  the  workers  was  as  rigidly  excluded  now,  under  the  new  regime, 
as  ordinary  retainers  ever  are. 

I  stood  by  my  "Southern  Lady."  She  was  in  evening  dress  .  . 
wore  a  lorgnette  .  .  I  trembled  as  I  leaned  over  her,  for  I  coiild 
see  the  firm,  white-orbed  upper  parts  of  her  breasts  .  .  I  was  trying 
to  be  lightly  playful,  and  was  clumsy  at  it.  I  took  up  her  lorgnette 
and  toyed  with  it.  I  sat  on  the  edge  of  a  table  .  .  and  where  I  sat 
stood  a  supposed  Greek  vase  of  great  antiquity  and  value. 

It  is  a  law  that  prevails  in  three-dimensional  space  that  two 
objects  cannot  occupy  the  same  place  at  one  time.  I  dislodged  the 
vase.  It  came  to  the  floor  in  a  crash  .  .  which  stopped  the  music 
.  .  which  stopped  everything.  There  fell  a  dead  silence.  I  looked 
down  at  the  fragments,  hardly  knowing  what  to  do.   .   . 

Spalton  came  over  to  me    .  .  intensely  .  .  his  eyes  blazing. 

*'Razorre,  come  out  into  the  lobby  .  .  I  want  to  speak  to  you." 
I  willingly  followed  him  .  .  he  wheeled  on  me  when  he  had  me  alone. 

*'Do  you  know  why  we  have  these  paintings  of  Gresham's  hung 
high  up  there  on  the  wall?"  he  asked  rhetorically,  with  an  eloquent, 
upward  sweep  of  his  arm,  "it's  so  bums  like  you  .  .  dirty  tramps  .  . 
can't  wipe  their  feet  on  them." 

"I  am  so  sorry,  so  very  sorry,"  I  murmured,  contrite. 

Thinking  my  contrition  meekness,  and  possibly  fear  of  him,  he 
went  to  take  me  by  the  shoulders.  I  knocked  his  hands  away 
promptly  and  quickly  stepped  back,  on  the  defensive  .  .  all  my 
reverence  for  him  swallowed  up  in  indignation,  rising  at  last,  against 
his  vulgar  chiding. 

At  that  moment,  my  widow,  Mrs.  Tighe,  arrived  .  .  she  was 
weeping.  .  . 

"Don't  be  hard  on  the  poor  boy,"  she  pleaded  .  .  "anyhow,  it  was 
all  my  fault  .  .  and  I  want  to  pay  you  for  your  vase  .  .  whatever 
it  cost."  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  229 

A  momentary  flicker  of  greed  lighted  the  Master's  eyes.  But  he 
perceived  as  instantly  how  unmagnanimous  he  would  appear  if  he 
accepted  a  cash  settlement. 

"I  am  not  thinking  of  my  financial  loss  .  .  beauty  cannot  be  valued 
that  way!"  he  exclaimed. 

"Then  you  must  not  blame  the  boy." 

"He  is  clumsy  .  .  he  is  a  terrible  fool  .  .  he  is  always  doing  the 
wrong  thing.  Oh,  my  beautiful  vase !"  and  he  wrung  his  hands, 
lost  in  the  pose.     Out  he  strode  through  the  front  door. 

The  musicale  had  been  broken  up. 

*'My  poor,  dear  Johnnie,  I  am  so  sorry,"  murmured  the  young 
woman.  I  was  sitting  in  the  large  armchair  where  she  had  sat  the 
memorable  night  of  the  lecture  that  neither  of  us  attended.  She 
had  seated  herself  on  one  of  the  arms. 

"You  mustn't  be  despondent !"     She  was  patting  my  hand. 

She  mistook  my  rage  at  the  gratuitous  insults  Spalton  had  heaped 
on  me  as  despondency.  She  leaned  closer  against  me  .  .  quickly  I 
caught  her  into  my  arms,  drew  her  into  my  lap  .  .  held  her  little, 
quiet,  amazed  face  in  my  hands  firmly,  as  I  kissed  and  kissed  her.  .  . 
I  knew  how  to  kiss  now.  .  . 

She  rose  presently.  I  stood  up  and  caught  her  in  my  arms. 
Slowly  and  firmly  she  disengaged  herself  .  .  silently  she  slid  away. 
She  stopped  in  the  shadow  a  moment  before  going  up  the  long, 
W'inding  stairs. 

"Good  night,  my  dear  poet,"  she  whispered. 

She  had  no  sooner  disappeared  than  I  started  out,  my  heart 
beating  like  a  drum  to  a  charge  in  me.  Spalton  frequently  wrote 
till  late,  in  his  office.  I  would  go  over  there  and,  if  he  was  there, 
call  him  to  account  for  his  insults.  There  was  a  light  lit  within, 
and  I  could  see  him  through  the  window  at  his  desk. 

"Come  in !"  in  answer  to  my  knock.  "Oh,  it's  you,  Razorre !"  and 
his  eyes  snapped  with  fresh  resentment.  "What  do  you  want.'' 
Don't  you  know  that  I'm  busy  on  A  Brief  Visit?'* 

"You  know  why  I'm  here !" 

**Well  ?"  challengingly. 

"I've  come  for  two  reasons.  I  want  to  apologise  to  you  for 
breaking  that  vase  .  .  and  I  demand  an  equal  apology  from  you, 
in  turn,  for  the  way  you  insulted  me  in  Mrs.  Tighe's  presence." 


280  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"You  deserved  everything  I  said  to  you,"  he  replied,  rising  quietly 
from  his  chair. 

"I  may  have  deserved  it  .  .  but  that  doesn't  alter  in  the  least 
my  intention  of  smashing  your  face  flat  for  the  way  you  spoke  to 
me,  unless  you  tell  me  you're  sorry  for  it." 

"My  dear  Gregory,  don't  be  a  fool." 

"A  fool?"  I  replied,  inflamed  further  by  the  appellation  applied 
to  quiet  me  in  such  a  superior  tone,  "if  you'll  come  on  out  into  the 
street  and  away  from  your  own  property,  I'll  show  you  who's  a 
fool  .  .  you'll  find  you  can't  treat  me  like  a  dog,  and  get  away 
with  it !" 

*'Why,  Razorre  .  .  my  dear,  dear  boy,"  calling  me  by  my  nickname 
and  taking  another  tack  .  .  he  laid  his  hand  gently  on  my  shoulder 
and  gave  me  a  deep,  burning  look  of  compassionate  rebuke  .  .  though 
I  saw  fear  flickering  back  of  it  all.   .   . 

*'Look  here,  John,"  I  burst  out,  never  able  to  hold  my  wrath 
long,  "I  like  you  .  .  think  you're  a  great  man — but  you  humiliated 
me  before  other  people  .  .  and  I've  come  to  such  a  pass  in  my  life 
that  I  wouldn't  let  God  Himself  get  away  with  a  thing  like  that!" 

*'Then  I  apologise  .  .  most  humbly!" 

"That  was  all  I  wanted.  Good-night!"  But  I  could  not  bring 
myself  to  leave  so  abruptly. 

"John,"  I  wavered,  "you  are  a  great  man  .  .  a  much  greater  man 
than  you  allow  yourself  to  be  .  .  I'm — I'm  going  away  from  here 
forever,  this  time  .  .  and  I — I  want  you  to  know  how  I  reverence 
and  love  the  bigness  in  you,  in  spite  of  our — our  differences." 

He  was  pleased. 

*'And  so  you're  going  to  college  somewhere.'"' 

"Yes." 

"Where?" 

I  had  talked  much  of  college  being  my  next  aim. 

"Either  the  University  of  Chicago,  or  further  west.'* 

"I  can  give  you  commutation  as  far  as  Chicago." 

*'I  cannot  accept  it." 

"You  must,  Razorre." 


A  week  from  then  I  left. 

I  went  up  to  Mrs.  Tighe's  room  to  say  good-bye.     Awkwardly 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  231 

and  with  the  bearlike  roughness  of  excessive  timidity  I  put  my 
arms  about  her,  drew  her  to  me  tentatively. 

"Be  careful,  poet  dear,  or  you'll  hurt  me,"  she  warned,  giving 
me  a  look  of  fondness.  Her  left  arm  was  in  a  sling.  She  had 
fallen  on  the  steps  a  few  days  before  and  had  broken  a  small  bone 
in  the  wrist.     "My  sweet  poet !" 

The  bandaged  arm  being  in  the  way,  I  put  my  head  down  in 
her  lap  again,  as  she  sat  there  on  the  edge  of  the  great,  white  bed. 

She  leaned  over,  turned  my  face  up  with  her  free  hand,  kissed 
me  full  in  the  mouth.  .  . 

"My  sweet  poet,"  she  repeated,  "good-bye!" 

While  at  Mt.  Hebron  I  had  chosen  German  as  my  modern  lan- 
guage. And  it  was  a  Professor  Langworth's  grammar  and  exercise 
book  that  we  used  as  a  text-book.  Langworth,  I  learned  from  the 
title  page,  was  professor  of  Germanic  languages  in  Laurel  Univer- 
sity, at  Laurel,  Kansas. 

And  now  I  bethought  me  that  it  would  be  much  better  to  go  to 
college  in  Kansas  than  attend  the  University  at  Chicago,  where, 
I  felt,  education  was  made  an  industry,  just  like  pork-packing 
and  the  hundred  other  big  concerns  in  that  city.  Kansas  would 
encourage  individuality  more,  be  less  appallingly  machine-like. 

The  great,  roaring  city  bewildered  me,  and  the  buildings  of  the 
University  of  Chicago  (for  I  got  so  far  as  to  ask  for  the  registrar's 
office)  overwhelmed  me  with  their  number.  And  I  fled.  With  the 
exception  of  a  few  days  I  put  in  washing  dishes  in  a  restaurant  there, 
I  stayed  no  longer,  but  freighted  it  southwest  to  Kansas  City  .  . 
from  whence  I  rode  a  freight  further  to  Laurel. 

In  the  evening  twilight  I  climbed  out  of  a  box  car  in  the  railroad 
yards  at  Laurel.  .  . 

I  enquired  my  way  to  the  university. 

"Up  on  the  hill." 

I  veered  off  from  the  main  street  of  the  town  .  .  a  length  of 
marching  telegraph  poles  and  flat-roofed  Western  houses.  I  struck 
across  lots  in  the  cold  and  dark.  I  floundered  through  half-hardened 
puddles  of  mud,  over  vacant  lots  that  afterward  seemed  to  have 
been  conjured  up  for  my  impediment  by  some  devil  of  piquaresque 
romance.  .  , 


232  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  hill,  the  very  top  of  it,  I  had  laboriously  attained.  On  all 
sides  the  college  buildings  gloomed  in  dusky  whiteness  of  architecture. 

One  of  them  was  lit  inside  with  the  mellow  glow  of  electric  lights. 
As  I  stepped  into  the  vestibule  timidly,  to  enquire  my  way  to 
Professor  Langworth's  house  (for  it  was  his  I  decided  to  seek  out 
first),  a  group  of  fragrant,  white-clad  girls  herded  together  in 
astonished  tittering  when  they  saw  me.  And  I  surely  looked  the 
tramp,  dusty  and  soiled  from  my  long  ride. 

I  asked  them  the  direction  to  Langworth's  house,  but  they  ignored 
me,  and  scattered.  Turning  in  confusion,  I  ran  into  a  man-student 
bodily  .  .  excused  myself  .  .  the  girls,  standing  further  off,  tittered 
again. 

"Can  you  direct  me  to  Professor  Gustav  Langworth's  house?" 

The  student  looked  me  over  curiously.  But  he  was  of  the  right 
sort. 

"Certainly.  Come  with  me.  I'm  going  that  way.  I'll  show 
you  where  it  is.  .  ." 


In  silence  we  descended  the  hill.   .   , 

*'That  house,  in  there  a  bit,  under  the  trees  .  .  that  is  where  the 
professor  lives." 

My  knock  set  a  dog  barking  inside  .  .  the  quick,  insistent  bark 
of  a  collie  that  romped  against  me,  putting  up  its  paws  on  me  when 
the  door  was  opened  by  a  slim-bodied  man  of  middle  height.  The 
man  was  dressed  in  a  grey  suit  .  .  he  had  a  kindly,  smooth-shaven 
face  except  for  a  close-cropped  pepper-and-salt  moustache  .  .  and 
grey-blue,  quizzical,  but  kindly  eyes. 

"Here,  Laddie,  come  here!"  called  the  voice  of  a  frail,  little 
woman  whose  hair  was  white  like  wool,  and  like  wool  in  texture. 
She  sat  crumpled  up  by  an  open  gas  fire  of  imitation  logs.  She 
Was  wry-backed,  her  right  shoulder  thrust  out  into  a  discernible 
hunch. 

She  flung  her  arm  tenderly  about  the  dog,  when  it  came  to  her. 
She  was,  I  figured,  the  professor's  mother  .  .  He  held  a  hurried, 
whispered  consultation  with  her — after  I  had  told  him  that  studying 
his  German  book  at  Mt.  Hebron  had  impelled  me  to  come  to  Laurel. 
Which  story  I  could  see  pleased  and  flattered  him. 

I  was  waiting  in  the  storm  porch. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  233 

He  returned.  He  thrust  his  hand  into  his  poclcet  and  fetched 
forth  a  two-dollar  bill. 

"Go  downtown  to  one  of  the  restaurants  you  will  find  on  the 
main  street.  You  can  get  a  square  meal  in  one  of  them  for  a 
quarter  or,  at  the  most,  fifty  cents  .  .  a  bed  for  the  same  price  .  . 
climb  the  hill  again  in  the  morning,  say  about  ten  o'clock,  and  ask 
for  me  at  the  German  Department  .  .  I  am  sorry  I  can't  invite  you 
to  stay  here  for  the  night  .  .  but  we  have  no  room  .  ."  and  he 
glanced  timidly  at  the  woman  whom  I  had  taken  to  be  his  mother, 
but  who,  I  afterward  learned,  was  his  wife. 


I  found  a  restaurant-hotel,  as  he  had  directed  me,  and  procured 
my  supper  for  a  quarter  .  .  fried  potatoes  and  a  cold  slab  of  steak 
.  .  and  a  big  Westerner  who  wore  a  sombrero  and  had  a  stupid, 
kindly,  boyish  face,  showed  me  to  a  bed  .  .  which  also  cost  but  a 
quarter  for  the  night  .  .  with  a  scattered  ambuscade  of  bedbugs 
thrown  in  for  good  measure. 

In  the  morning,  fried  pork  chops,  pancakes  and  two  cups  of 
coffee — and  I  set  out  for  the  hill. 

The  place  buzzed  with  activity.  The  fall  term  was  already  in 
full  swing,  and  students  poured  in  lines  up  and  down  both  sides 
of  the  steep  street  that  led  to  the  college  .  .  girls  and  boys  both,  for 
it  was  co-educational.  They  were  well  dressed  and  jolly,  as  they 
moved  in  the  keen  windy  sun  of  autumn. 

I  was  not  a  part  of  this.  I  felt  like  an  outcast,  but  I  bore  myself 
with  assumed  independence  and  indifference.  I  thought  everybody 
was  looking  at  me.     Most  of  them  were. 


Langworth  enrolled  me  as  a  special  student.  He  himself  paid 
my  tuition  fee,  which  was  a  nominal  one.  I  enrolled  in  Philosophy, 
Economics,  German,  Latin. 

My  patron,  furthermore,  slipped  a  ten-dollar  bill  into  my  hand. 
"For  the  books  you  will  need." 

He  directed  me  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  employment  bureau.  "They 
will  see  that  you  get  work  at  something,  so  you  can  be  sure  of  board 
and  room  .  .  in  the  early  days  we  did  not  have  things  so  well 
arranged.    I  worked  my  way  through  college,  too.    I  nearly  perished^ 


234  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

my  first  year.     After  you  settle  somewhere,  come  and  see  me  once 
in  a  while  and  let  me  hear  how  you're  getting  on." 

My  first  job  was  milking  a  cow  and  talcing  care  of  a  horse,  for 
board  and  room.  .  .  The  man  for  whom  I  worked  was  an  old, 
retired  farmer. 

The  disagreeable  part  of  taking  care  of  horses  and  cows  is  the 
smell.  My  clothes,  my  room,  even  the  skin  of  my  body,  soon  reeked 
with  the  faint  yet  penetrating  odour  of  stable  and  barn. 

But  I  was  happy.  Many  great  men  had  done  as  I  was  doing. 
Always  trust  me  to  dramatise  every  situation! 

I  arranged  my  meagre  row  of  text-books  on  the  shelf  in  my  attic. 
I  set  Keats  apart  in  a  sacred  nook  by  himself. 

I  sat  humming  softly  to  myself,  studying  my  first  lessons. 

*'Look,"  cried  a  girl,  her  voice  vibrating  with  the  hard  sarcasm 
of  youth,  "look,  there  goes  Abe  Lincoln,"  to  another  girl  and  two 
boys,  who  lolled  with  her  on  the  porch  of  the  house  next  mine. 

I  was  stabbed  with  a  bitter  pang  of  resentment.  For  my  face 
Was  thin  and  weather-beaten  .  .  my  sharp,  bent  knees  never  straight- 
ened as  I  walked  along,  like  a  man  going  through  snow  drifts. 
Yet  I  held  my  head  erect,  ridiculously  erect  .  .  and  my  chest  was 
enormous  through  over-development,  as  my  arms  and  legs  were  thin. 

My  first  few  days  at  Laurel  University  brought  me  that  beginning 
of  newspaper  notoriety  that  has  since  followed  me  everywhere  as  a 
shadow  goes  with  a  moving  object.  And  then  originated  the 
appellation  which  has  since  clung  to  me,  that  of  "The  Vagabond 
Poet." 

One  morning,  when  I  was  hardly  awake,  there  came  a  knock  at 
my  door. 

"Just  a  moment,"  I  called,  getting  into  my  shirt  and  trousers, 
"who  is  it?" 

"A  reporter  to  interview  you." 

I  opened  the  door  to  admit  a  pale,  young  chap,  who  expertly 
flirted  the  ashes  off  a  cigarette  as  he  said,  leaning  his  head  sidewise, 
that  he  represented  the  Kansas  City  Star.  As  he  spoke  his  keen 
grey  eyes  looked  me  over  impartially,  but  with  intelligent,  friendly 
interest.      Though   he  was   dressed    in   the   student's    conventional 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  235 

style,    even   to    the    curiously    nicked    and    clipped    soft    hat    then 
predominant,    there    was    still    about    him    an    off-handedness,    an 
impudent  at-homeness  that  bespoke  a  wider  knowledge,  or  assumed 
knowledge,  of  the  world,  than  the  average  student  possesses. 
The  interview  appeared  the  next  afternoon. 

"VAGABOND  POET  ARRIVES. 
LAUREL  ENROLLS  BOX-CAR  STUDENT." 

It  made  me  a  nine  days'  wonder  with  the  students.  I  caught  the 
men  staring  at  me,  the  girls  shyly  observing  me,  as  I  strode  from 
class  room  to  class  room.  .  . 

But  the  reek  of  the  stable.  It  went  with  me  like  a  ghost  every- 
where. Maybe  it  was  because  I  had  no  change  of  suits  .  .  I  saw 
that  it  was  noticeable  to  others,  and  I  sat  'way  back,  in  a  seat 
apart,  by  myself. 

Langworth  watched  my  progress  narrowly  the  first  few  weeks. 

One  afternoon  as  I  was  passing  his  house  he  beckoned  me  in. 

"You're  making  good,  and  I'm  glad  of  it  .  .  because  they're 
looking  on  you  as  my  protege  .  .  holding  me  responsible  for  you. 
Munday,  in  the  Schiller  class,  tells  me  you  'sometimes  bring  in  your 
daily  lesson  in  Wilhelm  Tell,  translated  into  blank  verse  .  .  and 
good  stuff,  too.  .  .  And  King  says  he  turns  over  the  most  difficult 
lines  in  Horace  in  class  for  you  to  translate  and  construe." 

Langworth  had  only  half  the  truth  from  King. 

Whenever  the  latter  came  upon  a  passage  a  little  off  colour,  he  put 
me  on  it,  chuckling  to  himself  .  .  he  knew  I  would  go  right  through 
with  it  without  hesitation. 

About  this  time  I  received  a  letter  from  William  Hayes  Ward, 
editor  of  the  New  York  Independent.  He  informed  me  that  he  had 
taken  a  poem  of  mine.  And,  as  indubitable  proof,  he  enclosed  a 
check  for  five  dollars. 

Professor  Langworth  was  himself  a  poet  of  no  mean  ability : 
he  was  pleased  to  hear  that  I  had  sold  a  poem  to  the  Independent. 

I  was  sick  of  being  shunned  because  I  carried  stable  smells  about 
with  me  wherever  I  went. 


236  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Also,  sanguinely,  with  the  sale  of  my  first  poem,  I  was  sure  that 
my  literary  career  had  begun,  and  that  from  now  on  I  would  be 
enabled  to  earn  my  living  by  my  pen,  and  pay  my  way  as  a  student, 
too.     So  I  threw  up  the  job  that  made  me  smell  so  unpleasantly. 

The  city  of  Laurel  had  been,  in  the  early  days,  in  the  memory  of 
settlers  yet  living  a  hale  life,  a  pioneer  outpost.  Through  it  flowed 
a  great,  muddy  river.  The  flat  roofs  of  its  main  street  still 
preserved  a  frontier  appearance.  It  was  surrounded  by  high, 
wind-swept  bluffs. 

They  still  talked  of  the  Quantrell  raid  and  repeated  the  story  of 
it  .  .  and  of  how  the  six  men  were  lynched  under  the  bridge  that 
swung  over  the  dam.   .   . 

At  the  time  of  the  slavery  agitation  its  citizens  had  encouraged 
the  negroes  to  escape,  had  petted  them,  idealised  them  as  no  human 
beings  of  any  race  should  be  idealised  .  .  had  run  schools  specially 
for  them  where  it  was  considered  an  honour  for  the  women  of  the 
settlers  to  teach. 

Now,  the  great  negro  population,  at  first  so  encouraged,  was 
crowded  into  a  festering  multitude  of  dilapidated  buildings  that 
stood  on  the  flats  close  by  the  region  where  the  river  coiled  through 
level  acres  of  low-lying  country.  This  place  was  known  as  the 
"Bottoms." 

I  am  trying  to  give  you  the  flavour  of  the  town. 

They  had  prohibition  there,  too  .  .  long  before  it  won  nation-wide 
power  .  .  consequently  the  negroes  drove  a  vast  trade  in  bootlegging 
.  .  and  a  concomitant  prostitution  of  coloured  women  and  girls 
throve.  One  or  two  students  on  the  hill  had,  to  my  knowledge, 
negro  mistresses  of  whom  they  were  fond.   .   . 

The  drug  stores  did  a  thriving  business  in  the  sale  of  spiritus 
frumenti — for  "snake  bite"  and  "stomach  trouble,"  which  seemed 
to  be  prevalent  and  epidemic  throughout  the  community. 

Saturday  was  market  day  for  the  farmers  who  lived  in  the 
adjoining  countryside  .  .  and  the  livery  stables  where  they  put  up 
their  horses  were  also  resorts  for  gambling  and  the  selling  of 
"bootleg"  booze.  .  . 

These  farmers  were  a  wild  lot .  .  something  like  European  peasants 
in  their    smacking    of    the    soil    and    the    country    to   which    they 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  237 

belonged,  but  with  a  verve  and  dash  of  their  own  distinctly  American. 

There  were  three  or  four  cheap  restaurants  that  catered  solely  to 
their  trade  .  .  "a  square  meal  for  a  quarter"  .  .  and  a  square  meal 
they  served  .  .  multitudes  of  fried  stuff  .  .  beefsteak,  potatoes,  boiled 
ham,  cabbage,  heaps  of  white  bread  constantly  replenished  as  it 
was  voraciously  devoured  .  .  always  plenty  of  hot,  steaming  coffee. 
Where  these  restaurants  profited  I  could  never  see  .  .  unless  by  a 
little  bootlegging  on  the  side. 

It  was  to  one  of  them  that  I  repaired  when  I  left  my  malodorous 
job.    The  same  one  where  I  had  spent  my  first  night  in  town. 

Langworth  sent  for  me  one  day. 

*'I  have  heard  wild  tales  about  you,  Johnnie.  I  don't  usually 
listen  to  gossip,  but  these  tales  are  so  recurrent  and  persistent  .  . 
about  your  going  about  with  the  degraded  people  who  live  in  the 
Bottoms,  that  I  considered  I  ought  to  see  you  about  it." 

I  confessed  that,  though  I  did  not  drink  their  bootleg  booze,  I  did 
have  a  wide  acquaintanceship  with  the  folk  of  the  Bottoms,  and 
that  I  knew  all  the  rowdies  among  the  farmers  .  .  that  I  passed  a 
lot  of  time  about  the  livery  stables  talking  with  them.  That  I 
often  rode  out  to  their  farms  in  the  hills  and  spent  Saturdays 
and  Sundays  there.  I  avowed  that  there  people  were  more  inter- 
esting to  me  than  the  carefully  tailored  professors  and  students. 

My  schoolmates  had  met  me  on  the  streets  in  company  with 
these  wild-looking  yokels,  sometimes  taking  them  to  their  waggons 
when  they  were  too  drunk  to  pilot  themselves  effectively.  And 
they  had  applied  to  me  the  proverb  of  "birds  of  a  feather." 

Before  I  left,  Langworth  drew  from  me  the  admission  that  I  was 
away  behind  in  my  board  bill  at  the  Farmers'  Restaurant.  My 
hopes  of  making  immediate  money  as  a  writer  of  poems  for  the 
magazines  had  so  far  been  barren  of  fruit. 

"Sh !  sit  down  a  minute  and  wait."  His  wife  was  coming  down- 
stairs, querulously,  waveringly;  her  eyes  red  from  weeping. 

"Laddie  has  just  died." 

"The  shepherd  dog?"  I  enquired;  for  she  had  spoken  as  of  a 
human  demise. 

"Yes,  the  dog  .  .  but  he  was  human,  if  anyone  was."     There  was 


238  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

an  acidulous  resentment  in  the  tone  of  her  answer  that  indicated 
that  she  wanted  her  husband  to  send  me  away. 

"She  wants  you  to  go,"  whispered  Langworth,  humouring  his 
wife  like  a  sick  child.  He  escorted  me  into  the  storm  porch.  "You 
have  no  idea,"  he  apologised  defensively,  "how  human  a  dog  can 
be,  or  how  fond  of  one  you  can  become.  .  ." 

"What's  this?"  I  asked,  taken  aback.  He  had  thrust  a  check 
into  my  hand  as  he  shook  hands  good-bye. 

"It's  a  check  I've  just  endorsed  over  to  you.  Royalties  on  a 
recent  text-book.  Please  do  take  it."  I  had  intimated  that  I 
would  probably  be  compelled  to  quit  college  and  go  on  the  tramp 
again  .  .  confessing  frankly,  also,  that  a  stationary  life  got  on 
my  nerves  at  times. 

"I  want  you  to  keep  on,  not  go  back  to  the  tramp  life  .  .  we'll 
make  something  of  you  yet,"  he  jested,  diffidently,  steering  me  off 
when  he  noticed  that  I  was  about  to  heap  profuse  thanks  on  him. 

"How  can  I  ever  thank  you " 

"By  studying  hard  and  making  good.  By  becoming  the  great 
poet  I  wanted  to  be." 

"But  how  can  I  pay  this  back?     It  will  take  a  long  time " 

"When  you  arrive  at  the  place  where  you  can  afford  to  pay  me 
back,  pass  it  on  to  someone  else  who  is  struggling  as  you  are  now, 
and  as  I  myself  have  struggled." 

•  •••••• 

Always,  always  I  wrote  my  poetry  and  kept  studying  in  my 
own  fashion  .  .  marks  of  proficiency,  attendance  at  class  went  by 
the  board.  My  studying  was  rather  browsing  among  the  multitudes 
of  books  in  the  college  library.  I  passed  hours,  back  in  the 
stacks,  forgetting  day  and  night  .  .  recitations  .  .  meals.   .   . 

I  was  soon  in  trouble  with  my  professors  .  .  I  was  always  up,  and 
even  ahead,  with  my  studies,  but  I  was  a  disrupting  influence  for 
the  other  students,  because  of  my  irregularity. 

I  discovered  wonderful  books  back  there  in  the  "stack"  .  .  the 
works  of  Paracelsus,  who  whispered  me  that  wisdom  was  to  be 
found  more  in  the  vagabond  bye-ways  of  life  than  in  the  ordered 
and  regulated  highways.  That  the  true  knowledge  was  to  be 
garnered  from  knocking  about  with  vagrants,  gipsies,  carriers  .  . 
from  corners  in  wayside  inns  where  travellers  discoursed.  .  . 

And  there  was  Boehraen,  the  inspired  German  shoemaker,  who 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  239 

was  visited  by  an  angel,  or  some  sort  of  divine  stranger,  and  given 
his  first  illumination  outside  his  shop  .  .  and  later  walked  a-field 
and  heard  what  the  flowers  were  saying  to  each  other,  seeing  through 
all  creation  at  one  glance,  crystal-clear. 

And  there  were  the  unusual  poets  .  .  old  Matthew  Prior,  who 
wrote  besides  his  poems,  the  Treaty,  was  it,  of  Utrecht?  .  .  hob- 
nobbed with  the  big  people  of  the  land  .  .  yet  refused  all  marks 
of  honour  .  .  the  best  Latinist  of  the  day  .  .  at  a  time  when  Latin 
was  the  diplomatic  language  of  Europe. 

When  he  wasn't  hobnobbing  with  the  aristocracy  or  writing 
treaties  he  was  sitting  in  inns  and  drinking  with  teamsters  .  .  had 
a  long  love  affair  with  a  cobbler's  wife,  and  married  the  lady  after 
the  cobbler  died.  .  . 

There  was  Skelton  and  his  rough-running,  irregular  rhythmic 
rather  than  strictly  metrical  verses  .  .  mad  and  ribald  .  .  often 
tedious  .  .  but  with  wild  flashes  of  beauty  interwoven  through  his 
poems  .  .  the  poem  about  his  mistress's  sparrow  .  .the  elegy  on  its 
death  .  .  where  he  prayed  God  to  give  it  the  little  wren  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  as  a  wife,  in  heaven — "to  tread,  for  solas!" 

And  Gay,  the  author  of  many  delightful  fables  .  .  who  must  wait 
still  longer  for  his  proper  niche,  because  he  showed  gross  levity  on 
the  subject  of  death  and  life  .  .  he  who  wrote  for  his  own  epitaph: 

"Life  is  a  jest,  and  all  things  show  it; 
I  thought  so  once,  but  now  I  know  it." 

For  all  those  who  would  not  keep  step,  who  romped  out  of  the 
regular  procedure  and  wantoned  by  the  way,  picking  what  flowers 
they  chose,  I  held  feeling  and  sympathy. 

The  Annual,  a  book  published  by  the  seniors  each  spring, 
now  advertised  a  prize  for  the  best  poem  submitted  by  any  student 
.  .  a  prize  of  twenty-five  dollars.  I  had  no  doubt  but  that  the  prize 
was  mine  already.  Not  that  I  had  become  as  yet  the  poet  I  desired, 
but  that  the  average  level  of  human  endeavour  in  any  art  is  so 
low  that  I  knew  my  assiduity  and  application  and  fair  amount  of 
inspiration  would  win. 

I  wrote  my  poem — A  Day  in  a  Japanese  Garden, only  two 

lines  I  remember: 


240  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

**And  black  cranes  trailed  their  long  legs  as  they  flew 
Down  to  it,  somewhere  out  of  Heaven's  blue," 

descriptive  of  a  little  lake  .  ,  oh,  yes,  and  two  more  I  remember, 
descriptive  of  sunset: 

*'And  Fujiyama's  far  and   sacred  top 
Became  a  jewel  shining  in  the  sun." 

The  poem  was  an  over-laquered,  metaphor-cloyed  thing  .  .  much 
like  the  bulk  of  our  free  verse  of  to-day  .  .  but  it  was  superior  to 
all  the  rest  of  the  contributions. 

The  prize  was  declared  off.  After  an  evening's  serious  discussion 
the  committee  decided  that,  though  my  effort  was  far  and  away 
the  best,  it  would  not  do  to  let  me  have  the  prize,  because  I  was 
so  wild-appearing  .  .  because  I  was  known  as  having  been  a  tramp. 
And  because  seniors  and  students  of  correct  standing  at  the  univer- 
sity had  tried.  And  it  would  not  be  good  for  the  school  morale  to 
let  me  have  what  I  had  won. 

They  compromised  by  declaring  the  prize  off. 

A  year  after.  Professor  Black,  assistant  professor  in  English 
literature,  who  served  on  the  judging  board,  told  me  confidentially 
of  this  .  .  though  he  declared  that  he  had  fought  for  me,  alleging 
how  I  needed  the  money,  and  how  I  had  honestly  won  the  award. 

I  thought  of  the  couplet  of  Gay : 

"He  who  would  without  malice  pass  his  days 
Must  live  obscure  and  never  merit  praise." 

Outwardly  I  maintained  a  bold  and  courageous  rudeness.  In- 
wardly a  panic  had  swept  over  me  .  .  not  the  panic  of  deep  solitude 
when  a  man  is  alone  at  night  in  a  boundless  forest  .  .  I  have  known 
that,  too,  but  it  is  nothing  to  that  which  comes  to  a  man  who 
knows  all  society,  by  its  very  structure,  arrayed  against  him  and 
his  dreams. 

When  the  ancient  Egyptians  had  finished  the  building  of  a 
pyramid,  they  began  polishing  it  at  the  top,  proceeding  downward. 
And  it  has  been  said  that  on  the  finished,  hard,  smooth  exterior 
even  a  fly  would  slip.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  241 

Huge,  granite,  towering,  the  regularised  life  appeared  to  me,  the 
life  that  bulked  on  all  sides  .  .  I  saw  that  it  was  the  object  of 
education,  not  to  liberate  the  soul  and  mind  and  heart,  but  to 
reduce  everything  to  dead  and  commonplace  formulae. 

On  all  sides,  so  to  speak,  I  saw  Christ  and  Socrates  and  Shelley 
valeted  by  society  .  .  dress  suits  laid  out  for  them  .  .  carefully 
pressed  and  creased  .  .  which, — now  dead, — it  was  pretended  their 
spirits  took  up  and  wore  .  .  had,  in  fact,  always  worn.  .  . 

And  my  mind  went  back  to  those  happy  days  at  Eos  .  .  happy 
despite  the  fly  in  the  ointment.   .   . 

I  thought  of  my  Southern  widow,  Mrs.  Tighe. 

"Poet,"  she  had  once  said,  "come  to  my  place  in  the  South.  I 
have  a  bungalow  back  of  my  house  that  you  may  live  in  .  .  write 
your  poems  unmolested  .  .  I  won't  be  going  there  for  awhile  yet, 
but  I  will  give  you  a  letter  to  the  caretaker,  and  you  can  use  the 
place.  And  my  pantry  and  ice  box  will  be  at  your  service  .  .  so 
you'll  need  do  nothing  but  write." 

Now,  fed  full  of  rebuffs,  I  wished  I  had  accepted  her  offer.  And 
I  wrote  her,  care  of  the  Eos  Artworks  .  .  an  ingenuous  letter, 
burning  with  naive  love.  .  . 

She  had  once  told  me  how  she  had  scandalised  the  neighbours  by 
painting  a  little  boy,  in  the  nude,  in  that  same  bungalow  .  .  the 
story  being  carried  about  by  the  servants  .  .  and  if  it  had  not 
been  for  her  social  prestige! 

I  thought  there  could  be  nothing  pleasanter  than  living  in  her 
place,  perhaps  becoming  her  lover.   .   . 

I  imagined  myself  posing,  nude,  for  her  canvases.  .  . 

But  my  brief  hope  fell  to  earth.  A  curt  note  from  a  married 
sister  of  hers  .  .  who  first  apologised  for  having  read  my  letter.  .  . 
But  Mrs.  Tighe  was  abroad,  painting  in  Spain. 

The  shock  of  having  someone  else,  indubitably  with  a  hostile 
eye,  read  my  letter,  in  which  I  had  poured  forth  all  my  heart, 
made  me  almost  sick.     I  was  chagrined  inexpressibly. 

The  truth  was,  spring  was  coming  on.  Spring  affects  me  as  it 
does  migratory  fowls.  With  its  first  effort  of  meadow  and  bough 
toward  renewed  flowers  and  greenness,  the  instinct  for  change  and 
adventure  stirs  anew  in  me. 


242  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  school  year  was  not  yet  up,  but  I  didn't  want  to  graduate. 

At  that  time  I  had  a  passion  for  meeting  well-known  people. 

It  was  then  my  only  avenue  of  literary  publication,  so  to  speak. 
The  magazines  were  steadily  returning  my  deluge  of  poems —  I  sent 
at  least  three  a  week  to  them  .  .  but  to  those  who  had  established 
themselves  I  could  show  my  work,  and  get  their  advice  and  notice.  .  . 

Walking  along  the  main  street,  I  ran  into  Jack  Travers,  the 
young  reporter  who  had  dubbed  me  the  "Vagabond  Poet,"  the 
"Box-car  Bard."  .  . 

"Well,  what  are  you  up  to  now,  Gregory?" 

^'Nothing,  only  I'm  thinking  of  a  trip  south  to  Osageville  to 
pay  a  visit  to  Mackworth,  the  Kansas  novelist." 

"That's  the  stuff  .  .  I  need  another  good  story  for  the  Era" 

"I'm  going  to  make  it  a  sort  of  pilgrimage  a-foot." 

"Great !  'Vagabond  Poet'  Pilgrims  to  Home  of  Celebrated  Kansan. 
It's  only  ninety  miles  to  Osageville  from  here  .  .  still  rather  cold  of 
nights  .  .  but  you'll  find  plenty  of  shelter  by  the  way  .  .  start  to-day 
and  I  can  get  the  story  in  in  time  for  this  Sunday's  Era.  .  ." 

Travers  got  a  camera  from  a  fraternity  brother. 

"Come  on,  we'll  walk  up  an  alley  and  I'll  snap  you  just  as  if  you 
were  on  the  way.  .  ." 

"No,  I  won't  do  that !" 

—"won't  do  what?" 

— "won't  fake  it  .  .  if  you  want  a  picture  of  me  on  the  way,  it  will 
have  to  be  on  the  way !" 

"Of  all  the  fools !  Ain't  the  alleys  muddy  enough  to  be  like  the 
gumbo  you'll  have  to  plough  through?"  he  teased.  But  I  wouldn't 
allow  him  to  take  a  fraudulent  picture.  He  had  to  come  with  me, 
through  the  mud,  grumbling,  to  the  edge  of  town. 

There,  on  the  country  road  that  led  in  the  direction  of  Osageville, 
my  feet  rooted  in  gumbo,  a  sort  of  thick  composite  of  clay  and 
mud  that  clings  to  the  feet  in  huge  lumps,  I  had  my  photograph 
taken  .  .  actually  on  the  march  toward  my  destination  .  .  no  hat 
on  .  .  a  copy  of  Keats  in  my  hand. 

Travers  waved  me  good-bye.  "You'll  see  the  story  in  the  Era 
Sunday  sure,"  he  shouted,  in  a  tone  half  affection,  half  irony.    I  was 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  243 

nettled  at  the  irony.     I  wanted  it  to  be  looked   on  as   a  quest 
entirely  heroic. 


It  began  to  rain.  Far  off,  like  a  high,  great  ship  riding  on  the 
horizon,  rode  the  hill,  with  its  cluster  of  university  buildings. 

My  first  impulse  was  to  turn  back,  to  quit.  That  is  always  my 
first  impulse.  The  instincts  of  my  bourgeois  ancestry  against  the 
unusual,  the  impractical, — the  safe-and-sane  conservatism  of  the 
farmers  and  clerks  and  small  business  men  bred  in  my  people  for 
generations!  .  . 

I  pushed  on  through  the  clinging,  maddening  gumbo,  slithering 
and  sliding.  Fortunately,  I  wore  an  overcoat,  which,  after  it  had 
reached  the  saturation  point,  shed  most  of  the  steady,  oblique- 
driving  rain  that  came  for  miles  over  the  plains  in  a  succession 
of  grey,  windy  sheets.  But  my  wrists  and  hands  were  aching,  wet, 
and  my  thin,  plying  legs,  to  my  knees.  And  the  "squash-squish!" 
of  my  soaked  feet  in  the  mud  plodded  a  steady  refrain  of  misery. 

My  Keats,  at  least,  was  dry.  I  kept  the  volume  under  my  belt 
and  against  my  naked  belly. 

And  I  was  happy  and  buoyed  up  by  the  thought,  which  lessened 
my  discomfiture,  that  Sunday  morning  thousands  of  readers  in 
comfortable  homes  would  be  reading  about  me,  would  gaze  upon  my 
photograph. 

People  looked  out  of  their  farmhouse  windows  at  me  as  if  an 
insane  man  were  stalking  by. 

It  darkened  rapidly. 

My  first  night's  shelter  was  in  a  leaky  outhouse.  The  farmstead 
to  which  it  belonged  had  burned  down.  I  might  have  been  taken  in 
at  any  number  of  places,  but  my  access  of  timidity  was  too  great 
.  .  it  might  on  the  following  dawn  be  followed  by  as  great  an 
effrontery.  My  year  in  college  had  disorganized  me,  pulled  me  out 
of  my  tramp  character.  It  was  no  more  a  usual  thing  to  beg  or 
ask  for  shelter. 

I  could  not  sleep.  My  muscles  were  already  overstrained  from 
the  excessive  effort  of  struggling  along  in  the  tenacious  mud,  like  a 
fly  escaping  from  the  edge  of  spilled  molasses. 

I  had  brought  a  box  of  small  candles  for  just  such  an  emergency. 
I  lit  one  after  the  other,  sat  on  the  seat,  and  read  Keats  all  night 


244  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

.  .  in  an  ecstasy,  forgetting  my  surroundings,  my  pitiful  poverty, 
my  pilgrimage  that  would  seem  ridiculous  to  most. 

The  rain  increased.  Outside  it  drummed  and  drummed.  Inside 
it  dripped  and  dripped. 

And  as  I  sat  there,  upright,  to  escape  the  drip  from  the  leaks,  I 
climbed  to  a  high,  crystal-clear  state  of  spirit. 

Again  I  burned  through  Keats'  life  as  if  remembering  that  it  was 
what  I  had  myself  suffered  .  .  as  if  suddenly  I  awoke  to  the  realisa- 
tion that  /  was  Keats,  re-born  in  America,  a  tramp-student  in 
Kansas.  .  . 

And  now  Severn,  my  true,  faithful  friend,  was  with  me  .  .  Severn, 
who  had  given  up  his  career  as  painter  to  be  near  me  in  my  last 
days  .  .  we  were  on  the  Maria  Crowther  .  .  we  were  still  off  the 
coast  of  England,  and  I  had  gone  ashore  for  the  last  touching  of 
my  foot  on  English  soil.  .  . 

There  hung  the  great,  translucent  star  of  evening,  at  that  hushed 
moment  of  twilight,  before  any  other  of  the  stars  had  come  forth  .  .  . 

"Bright  star,  would  I  were  steadfast  as  thou  art — 
Not  in  lone  splendour  hung  aloft  the  night, 
And  watching,  with  eternal  lids  apart. 
Like  nature's  patient,  sleepless  Eremite, 
The  moving  waters  at  their  priestlike  task 
Of  pure  ablution  round  earth's  human  shores,  .  ." 

The  evening  star  made  me  dream  of  immortality  and  love — my 
love  for  Fanny  Brawne.  .  . 

Now  we,  Severn  and  I,  were  journeying  across  the  country  to 
Rome  .  .  voyaging,  rather,  through  fields  of  flowers  .  .  like  my 
procession  of  Bacchus  in  Endymion  .  .  that  was  a  big  poem, 
after  all.  .  . 

Now  the  fountain  played  under  the  window  .  .  where  I  was  to 
die.  .  . 

"Severn,  I  feel  the  daisies  growing  over  me." 

"Severn,  I — I — Severn  .  .  I  am  dying  .  .  Severn,  lift  me  up — 
I " 

"Here  lies  one  whose  fame  was  writ  in  water."  (How  they 
cruelly  laughed  at  that — for  a  time!) 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  245 

I  gave  a  start,  almost  a  scream  of  agony  .  .  the  candle,  somehow, 
had  served  me  a  ghastly  trick  .  .  it  had  cast  my  shadow  backard 
on  the  wall,  like  that  shadow  cast  by  the  head  of  the  dying  poet, 
as  Severn  had  sketched  it  .  .  I  ran  my  hand  over  my  face  .  .  it 
was  hollow  and  tight-drawn  like  the  face  of  a  consumptive. 

The  mass  of  resistance  I  had  to  face,  for  poetry's  sake,  was  too 
enormous  .  .  my  country's  motto  was  not  "beauty  is  truth,  truth 
beauty,"  but  "blessed  be  that  man  who  can  make  two  hills  of  corn 
grow  where  one  bank  of  violets  grew  before,"  .  .  and  my  pilgrimage, 
in  that  hour  of  vision,  it  disgusted  me  .  .  for  I  was  making  it  not 
to  some  grand  poet  like  L'Estrange,  but  to  the  home  of  the  chief 
exponent  of  the  "Honest-to-God,  No-Nonsense-About-Me  Hick 
School  of  Literature"  .  .  and  associated  with  him  was  the  syndicate 
poet,  William  Struthers,  called  familiarly  Uncle  Bill,  whose  daily 
jingles  run  together  as  prose,  were  now  making  him  a  fortune. 

With  the  coming  of  dawn  the  day  cleared,  the  sun  glistened  on  a 
thousand  puddles,  making  them  silver  and  gold.  .  . 

By  walking  carefully  on  the  side  of  the  road,  I  made  progress 
less  muddy.  I  was  used  to  the  squashing  of  the  water  in  my  shoes. 
The  weather  turned  warmer. 

I  found  myself  on  the  usual  long  one-street  called  Main  Street,  in 
the  prosperous  little  city  of  Osageville.  It  was  Sunday.  A  corner 
loiterer  directed  me  to  Jarvis  Alexander  Mackworth's  house. 

A  habitation  of  sequestered  quiet  .  .  as  I  stood  before  the  door 
I  heard  the  sunrise  song  of  Rossini's  Wilhelm  Tell  .  .  a  Red  Seal 
record  .  .  accompanied  by  the  slow,  dreamy  following  of  a  piano's 
tinkle  .   .  like  harp  sounds  or  remote,  flowing  water. 

I  halted,  under  a  charm.  I  waited  till  the  melody  was  at  an  end 
before  I  knocked.    A  small,  pale-faced,  pretty  little  woman  answered. 

"Does  Mr.  Jarvis  Mackworth  live  here?" 

"Yes.  Come  in.  We  have  been  expecting  you.  You  are  the  poet, 
aren't  you?" 

"Yes,  I  am  the  poet." 

"You're  a  good  walker  .  .  we  didn't  expect  you  before  Monday 
or  Tuesday.   .   .    Jarvis,  here's  the  poet-boy  from  the  university." 

"My  host,  unseen  within,  turned  off  another  Red  Seal  record  he 
had  just  started,  again  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  piano.  .  • 
Kreisler's  Caprice  Viennoise.  .  . 


246  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Jarvis  Alexander  Mackworth  came  forth  like  a  leisurely  duck, 
waddling.  He  was  very,  very  fat.  He  extended  me  a  plump, 
white  hand  .  .  a  slack  hand-shake  .  .  but  not  an  unhearty  one,  rather 
a  grip  of  easy  welcome. 

A  kind,  rubicund,  moon-round  face,  full  of  large  blue  eyes  smiling 
a  gentle  and  kindly  welcome  .  .  if  the  face  of  Shelley's  father,  plump 
and  methodic-oracular,  could  have  been  joined  to  the  wild,  shining 
ecstasy  of  Shelley's  countenance  itself — you  would  have  had  Mack- 
worth's  face  before  its  time.  I  never  beheld  such  spirituality  in  a 
fat  man.     His  stoutness  was  not  unpleasing. 

"My  boy  .  .  come  in  .  .  my  God,  you're  all  wet  .  .  you  look  frail, 
too."  A  pity  shone  in  his  eyes.  "Minnie,  call  up  Ally  Merton  .  .  " 
turning  to  me,  "I  have,  as  you  can  see,  no  clothes  to  fit  you  .  .  but 
Ally  might  have  .  .  he's  about  your  size,  but  he  carries  a  trifle  more 
meat  on  his  bones,  .  . 

"Come  in  and  dry  yourself  before  the  fire  till  he  gets  over." 

We  sat  before  the  gas-fire  of  artificial  logs. 

"Minnie,  will  you  make  a  cup  of  tea  for  this — poor  boy,"  and 
he  lowered  his  voice  at  the  last  two  words,  realising  that  I  was 
hearing,  too. 

"Yes,Jarv!" 


I  sat  at  the  table  in  the  dining  room.  Jarvis  Alexander  Mack- 
worth  sat  on  the  piano-stool,  again  playing  the  piano  in  rhythm 
rather  than  in  accompaniment  with  the  records  .  .  it  was  Caruso 
now.  .  . 

"A  glorious  voice,  isn't  it,  young  man.^"  Mackworth  asked,  as  I 
ate  voraciously  of  the  cold  roast  set  before  me  .  .  of  the  delicious 
white  bread  and  fresh  dairy  butter,  just  from  the  churn  of  some 
neighbouring  farmer. 

"I  know  nothing  much  about  music,"  he  continued,  " — ^just  appre- 
ciate it  .  .  — seems  to  me  that's  what  we  need  now,  more  than 
anything  else  .  .  appreciation  of  the  arts  .  .  I  like  to  sit  here  and 
pick  out  the  melodies  on  the  piano  as  the  tune  runs  on.  It  inspires 
me.  The  precious  people,  the  aesthetic  upstarts,  make  fun  of  Edison 
and  his  *canned  music,'  as  they  call  it  .  .  but  I  say  Edison  is  one 
of  the  great  forces  for  culture  in  America  to-day.  Everybody  can't 
go  to  New  York,  London,  Paris,  Bayreuth  .  .  not  to  Chicago  even  .  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  247 

"Beauty  must  come  to  Osageville,  since  Osageville  cannot  come 
to  Beauty." 
I  was  charmed. 
"Mr.  Mackworth,  you  are  a  great  man,"  I  said. 

A  ring  at  the  bell.    Ally  Merton.  .  . 

"Ally,  this  is  Mr.  John  Gregory,  poet  at  large,  Villon  of  Amer- 
ican  Literature   .    .   let   us   hope,   some   day   a   little   more    of   the 

Whittier  .  .  Ally "  and  the  speaker  turned  to  me,  "Ally  Merton 

is  my  right  hand  man  .  .  my  best  reporter  .  .  " 

He  took  Merton  aside,  in  private  talk  .  .  Ally  looked  me  over 
with  a  keen,  swift  glance  that  appraised  me  from  head  to  foot  in- 
stantly .  .  sharply  but  not  hostilely  .  .  as  one  who  takes  in  a  situation 
in  a  comprehensive  instant. 

"Yes,  Mr.  Mackworth,  I  can  do  it  easily  .  .  if  they'll  fit  him." 

There  was  an  impersonality,  however,  about  Merton's  cryptic 
words  that  annoyed  me. 

"You  are  going  home  with  Ally,  John,"  Mackworth  said  to  me, 
using  my  familiar  name  for  the  first  time,  "and  borrow  a  suit  of  his 
clothes  .  .  and  you  are  coming  back  with  him  to  dinner  .  .  where 
you'll  meet  a  very  famous  person — Miss  Clara  Martin." 

Ally's  blue  serge  suit  was  too  short  in  the  legs  and  arms  for  me  .  . 
otherwise  it  fitted.  His  gentleness  and  unobtrusive  quietness  entered 
into  me,  along  with  the  putting  on  of  his  apparel.  He  led  me  up- 
stairs in  his  house. 

"Mr.  Mackworth  has  asked  me  to  put  you  up  while  you  are  in 
town  .  .  because  his  own  house  is  full  at  present,  otherwise  he  would 
accommodate  you  there  .  .  I  guess  we  can  make  shift  to  entertain 
you  properly. 

"Here  is  the  bathroom  .  .  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  it,  when 
you  throw  the  toilet  seat  up,  let  the  water  run  from  the  tap  over 
the  wash  basin  .  .  my  mother  and  sisters !"  he  trailed  off  in  in- 
audible, deprecative  urge  of  the  proprieties. 

Ally  was  anything  but  a  small-town  product.  Suave,  socially 
adroit,  an  instinctive  creature  of  Good  Form.  .  . 

He  came  into  the  room  he  had  given  me  to  stay  in.  I  looked  like 
a  different  man,  togged  out  in  his  clothes.    Ally  was  surprised  that 


248  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  could  wear  his  shoes  .  .  he  had  such  small  feet  .  .  I  informed  him 
proudly  that  I,  too,  had  small  feet.  .  . 

"No,  no,  that  is  not  the  way  to  tie  a  tie  .  .  let  me  show  you  .  . 
you  must  make  both  ends  meet  exactly  .  .  there,  that's  it !"  and  he 
stepped  back,  a  look  of  satisfaction  on  his  face  .  .  he  handed  me  a 
pearl  stick  pin. 

"This  is  a  loan,  not  a  gift,"  he  murmured. 

I  returned  a  quick,  angry  look. 

"I  don't  want  your  pin." 

"No  offence  meant,"  he  deprecated,  "and  you  must  wear  it"  (for 
I  was  putting  it  aside)  "Mr.  Mackworth  and  I  both  want  you  to 
look  your  best  when  you  meet  Miss  Martin  at  dinner  to-night"  .  .  I 
angrily  almost  decided  to  take  his  pin  with  me  when  I  left,  just  to 
fulfill  his  pre-supposition. 

"No,  that's  not  the  place  to  stick  it  .  .  let  me  show  you  .  .  not  in 
the  body  of  the  tie,  but  further  down,"  and  he  deftly  placed  the  pin  in 
the  right  spot.  Then  he  stepped  back  like  an  artist  who  is  proud 
of  having  made  a  good  job  of  bad  materials.  .  . 

"You  look  almost  like  a  gentleman." 

I  was  about  to  lick  into  Merton  and  lend  him  a  sample  of  a  few 
strong  objurgations  of  road  and  jail,  when  I  saw  myself  in  the 
glass.  I  stood  transfixed.  He  had  not  meant  to  be  ironic.  The 
transformation  was  startling.  .  . 

"If  you  would  only  keep  yourself  tidy  all  the  time  that  way!  .  . 
it's  easy." 

"Not  for  me  .  .  everything  material  that  I  touch  seems  to  fall 
apart.  .  .  I  lose  my  shirts  inexplicably  .  .  my  socks  .  .  holes  appear 
overnight  in  my  clothes.  Books  are  the  only  things  I  can  keep.  I 
am  always  cluttered  up  with  them." 

"Appearances  mean  everything  .  .  then,  if  you  have  the  rest,  the 
goods  to  deliver,  there  is  no  place  a  man  might  not  go  nor  attain." 

I  looked  the  small  town  reporter  over  in  surprise.  I  studied  him 
closely  for  the  first  time.  He  belonged  to  the  world,  not  to  Osage- 
ville  .  .  the  world  of  fashion,  of  smartness  .  .  a  world  I  despised. 
My  world  and  his  would  always  be  like  separate  planets.  He  would 
consort  with  people  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  social  life  with  them. 
The  one  thing  I  did  not  like  about  him  was  his  small  mouth.  .  but 
then  I  did  not  like  my  own  mouth  .  .  it  was  large,  sensual,  loose  and 
cruel. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  249 

And  his  walk  .  .  it  was  almost  dainty  mincing.    But  then  my  walk 
was  a  loose,  bent-kneed  method  of  progression.  .  . 


Miss  Martin,  the  celebrated  exposer  of  corrupt  millionaires  and 
captains  of  industry,  was  dark  and  tall.  She  had  been  good-looking 
in  girlhood.     She  had  fine  eyes  in  a  devastated  face. 

I  found  myself  petted,  mothered  by  her.  As  soon  as  she  saw  me 
she  removed  a  thread  that  hung  to  my  coatsleeve. 

At  supper  I  was  told  of  a  new  project.  A  group  of  writers, 
especially  of  writers  who  were  in  revolt  against  big  business  and 
the  corruption  of  the  trusts,  were  about  to  effect  a  combination 
and  start  what  was  to  be  called  the  National  Magazine;  for  it  was 
to  be  no  less  than  that,  a  magazine  embracing  all  America,  to 
serve  as  a  re-invigorant  and  re-corroborant  for  new  national 
ideals  .  .  really  only  a  tilting  against  the  evils  of  big  combinations, 
in  favour  of  the  earlier  and  more  impossible  ideals  of  small  business 
units — the  ideal  of  a  bourgeois  commercial  honesty  and  individual 
effort  that  could  no  more  be  re-established  than  could  the  big  shoe 
factory  be  broken  up  and  returned  to  the  shanty  of  the  village  shoe- 
maker. .  .  Bryan's  dream  .  .  the  last  effort  of  the  middle  classes 
to  escape  their  surely  destined  strangulation  .  .  which  gave  birth 
to  the  abortive  progressive  party. 

I  was  assured  by  Miss  Martin  and  Mackworth  that  a  poet  who 
could  sing  American  ideals  and  dreams  was  needed  by  them  .  .  Ray 
Stannard  Baker,  Peter  Finley  Dunne,  Upton  Sinclair,  were  all  to 
Write  for  them.  .  . 

I  saw  clearly  that  their  revolution  was  a  backward-working  one. 
That  the  country's  business  could  never  again  be  broken  up  into 
a  multitude  of  small  shops  and  individual  competitors. 

Of  course,  I  was  at  that  time  a  Socialist  of  the  violent,  fiery  type 
— with  a  strong  cast  toward  the  anarchism  of  Emma  Goldman. 

But  it  flattered  me  to  be  taken,  as  it  were,  into  the  inner  coun- 
cils of  such  great  folk.  .  . 

"Send  us  some  of  your  poetry,  with  the  right  American  ring  to 
it,  Johnnie,"  suggested  Miss  Martin,  "and  we  will  make  you  the 
poet  of  the  group." 

I  think  that  Ally  Merton's  clothes  on  me,  and  his  correct  tie. 


250  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

made  my  good  Impression,  as  much  as  my  after-talk  around  the  fire- 
place, where  I  spun  yarns  of  my  strange  life  and  adventures. 

*'You  made  a  hit,"  commented  Ally,  as  he  conducted  me  back  to 
his  house,"  it's  a  great  opening  for  you.    Follow  it  up !" 
"I  will !» 

That  night  I  could  not  sleep.  My  blood  made  a  tumult  through 
my  body.  Before  dawn  I  had  written  two  poems  on  national  themes ; 
didactic  verses,  each  with  a  moral  of  democracy  tagged  to  it,  and 
much  about  the  worth  of  simplicity  in  it,  and  the  dignity  of  honest 
labour. 

Yes,  I  would  be  their  poet.    And  America's  poet.  .  . 

And  visions  of  a  comfortable,  bourgeois  success  took  me  .  .  inter- 
minable Chautauquas,  with  rows  of  women  listening  to  my  inspiring 
verses  .  .  visits  as  honoured  guest  to  the  homes  of  great  popular 
leaders  like  Roosevelt  .  .  dignity  and  rides  in  parlour  cars,  instead 
of  dusty,  dirty  box  cars  .  .  interviews  of  weight  and  speeches  of 
consequence  .  .  and  the  newspapers  would  drop  their  undercurrent 
of  levity  when  I  was  written  about  in  them,  and  treat  me  with  con- 
sideration. 

Finally,  I  would  possess  a  home  like  Mackworth's,  set  back  amid 
shade  trees,  a  house  not  too  large,  not  too  small  .  .  a  cook  and 
maid  .  .  a  pretty,  unobtrusive  wife  devoted  to  me.  .  . 

And  I  would  wear  white  linen  collars  every  day,  tie  the  ends  of 
my  tie  even  .  .  and  each  year  would  see  a  new  book  of  mine  out,  pub- 
lished by  some  bookseller  of  repute  .  .  and  I  could  afford  Red  Seal 
records  .  .  and  have  my  largest  room  for  a  library.  .  . 

Middle-class  comfort  was  upon  me  .  .  good  plumbing  .  .  electric 
light  .  .  laundry  sent  out  .  .  no  more  washing  of  my  one  shirt  over- 
night and  hanging  it  up  to  dry  on  the  back  of  a  chair,  while  I 
slept  .  .  and  putting  it  on,  next  morning,  crinkly  and  still  damp. 

I  was  already  seduced,  if  there  hadn't  been  that  something  in  me 
which  I  myself  could  not  control! 

•  •••••• 

It  was  when  I  caught  Mackworth  on  the  streets  of  his  town  and 
in  his  newspaper  office  that  I  discovered  the  man  himself. 

In  our  country,  especially  in  the  Middle  West,  everybody  watches 
everybody  else  for  the  least  lapse  in  the  democratic  spirit. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  251 

Though  he  was  truly  democratic  at  heart,  Mackworth  laid  it  on 
in  theatric  outward  appearance,  in  true  line  with  the  Kansas  tradi- 
tion of  a  sockless  Jerry  Simpson,  who  went  without  socks,  as  the 
adjective  implies,  and  made  Congress  on  that  one  platform  of  his 
sartorial  lack  .  .  of  William  Roscoe  Stubbs,  who  rode  into  the  office 
of  governor  partly  on  the  fact  that  his  daughter  could  make  salt- 
rising  bread  .  .  a  form  of  bread-making  cultivated  by  the  hardy 
pioneers  of  the  state,  and  now  no  longer  necessary. 

Mackworth  was  "in-legged"  .  .  that  is,  his  legs  on  the  insides 
rubbed  together  from  the  crotch  to  the  knees  .  .  and  he  wore  old 
patches,  hanging  there  actually  in  strips  .  .  and,  I  think,  had  his 
trouser-seat  patched,  too  .  .  and  though  he  could  have  afforded  a 
car,  he  drove  about,  he  and  his  family,  in  a  rickety  old  two-seated 
rig,  deliberately  kept,  it  seemed,  in  ill-repair  .  .  and  it  was  such  an 
old  ex-plow  horse  that  dragged  it  about ! 

His  fellow  townsmen  laughed,  but  they  liked  it.  "Jarv's  all  right ! 
No  nonsense  about  Jarv,  even  ef  he  is  one  o'  them  lit'rary  fellers !" 

To  call  everybody  by  the  first  name — that  was  the  last  word  in 
honest,  democratic  fellowship. 

Whether  this  exterior  appearance  of  Mackworth  was  sincere  or 
affected  in  him  I  never  could  quite  tell.  I  am  almost  inclined  to  be- 
lieve it  was  not  done  for  effect, — ^but  out  of  an  Assisian  simplicity 
of  heart,  as  a  sign  manual  of  Bourgeois  integrity. 

If  it  was  an  affectation,  his  personal  attitude  toward  the  people 
with  whom  he  came  into  contact  was  not  .  .  in  his  office  everybody 
loved  him,  and  worked  for  him  with  that  easy  efficiency  that  comes 
of  good  will  and  respect.  .  . 

Unostentatiously  and  affectionately  he  went  about  helping 
people. 

"We've  got  a  wonderful  town  here  .  .  very  little  vice,  except  that 
which  always  will  be  in  every  community  because  it  is  inherent  in 
human  nature  .  .  we  have  a  fine  college  of  our  own  .  .  a  fine  electric 
plant  .  .  everybody's  lawn  is  well-kept  .  .  nobody  in  this  town  need 
be  out  of  a  job  .  .  for  miles  around  us  the  land  is  rich  in  real  wealth 
of  waving  corn  and  wheat.  .  . 

Kansas  will  be  the  centre,  the  Athens,  of  our  civilisation,  one 
day.  .  . 

We  have  a  fine  Harvey  Eating  House  at  our  railway  station, 


252  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

managed  by  a  hustler  .  .  you  must  have  Ally  take  you  there  for 
dinner  before  you  go  back  to  Laurel." 

The  idealisation  of  small  comfort  .  .  in  a  case  like  Mackworth's, 
fairly  unobjectionable  .  .  but  in  most  cases  insufferably  stodgy  .  . 
the  dry-rot  of  art,  literature,  life  .  .  leading  to  a  smug  conceit  that 
in  turn  ends  in  that  school  of  "two  hills  of  corn  where  one  cluster 
of  violets  grew  before." 

No  wonder  that  the  National  Magazine,  starting  with  a  splendid 
flourish  of  knight-errantry,  degenerated  into  the  mere,  "let-well- 
enough-alone"  thrift-crier  it  is  .  .  "  'How  I  Became  an  Expert  Tomb- 
stone Salesman'  .  .  'How  I  collected  Tin  Foil  After  Work-Hours  and 
Added  Three  Hundred  a  Year  Extra  to  My  Salary  as  Stenog- 
rapher.' .  .  " 

Rather,  far  rather,  the  Rockefeller,  that  shrewd  manipulator  of 
businesses  .  .  with  all  his  parsimony  in  personal  economics  .  .  his 
diet  of  bread  and  milk  .  .  and  his  giving  away  of  millions  to  missions 
and  scientific  institutions.  .  . 

Rather  the  big  Morgan,  who  knew  the  old  masters  as  well  as  he 
knew  the  weaknesses  of  men  .  .  who  hobnobbed,  not  as  a  democrat, 
but  as  aristocratic  as  the  best  of  them,  with  princes,  kings,  emperors, 
in  his  grim,  forbidding  dignity. 

This  at  least  presented  bigness  and  romance! 

*'Want  to  meet  Uncle  Bill?"  and  Mackworth  led  me  into  a  close- 
shut  room  blue-thick  with  smoke.  .  . 

I  coughed  and  choked.  A  fire  extinguisher  should  have  preceded 
our  entry. 

There  sat — the  lumbering  trot  of  his  typewriter  heard  long  be- 
fore he  assumed  visible,  hazy  outline — ^William  Struthers,  known  to 
the  newspaper  world  as  "Old  Uncle  Bill,"  the  writer  of  daily  prose- 
verse  squibs  on  the  homely  virtues,  the  exalter  of  the  commonplaces 
of  life,  the  deifier  of  the  ordinary. 

Uncle  Bill's  head  of  strong,  black  hair  stood  upright  like  thick 
wire.  His  thick,  stubby  fingers  trotted  like  cart  horses  on  and  on. 
He  stopped  and  drew  up  a  chair  for  me. 

"Of  course  I  ain't  calling  my  stuff  poetry,"  he  began  deprecat- 
ingly,  "but  I  do  a  lot  of  good  for  folks  .  .  folks  read  my  stuff  when 
they  ain't  got  time  to  read  the  real  poets." 

Instead  of  flattering  him,  I  gave  him,  frankly  but  gently,  my 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  253 

opinion  of  the  cornfed  school  of  literature,  easing  the  sting  by 
inferring  that  he  without  doubt  had  bigger  things  up  his  sleeve  than 
his  so-called  prose  poems. 

What  I  said  struck  the  right  chord. 

"Of  course  a  fellow  has  to  make  a  living  first." 

(But,  in  my  heart,  I  thought — it  is  just  as  vile  for  a  man  to 
send  his  wife  out  as  a  street-walker,  and  allege  the  excuse  about 
having  to  live,  as  it  is  for  a  poet  to  prostitute  his  Muse.) 

Nevertheless,  Mackworth,  Uncle  Bill  and  I  stood  together,  in  the 
sunny  street  outside,  posing  for  the  photographer.  And  I  swelled 
with  inordinate  pride.  Though  I  knew  I  was  bigger  than  both  of 
them  put  together,  yet,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  these  men  were 
big  men — and  having  my  photograph  taken  with  them  was  an  indi- 
cation to  me,  that  I  was  beginning  to  come  into  my  own. 

Perhaps  our  picture  would  be  reproduced  in  some  Eastern  paper 
or  magazine  .  .  perhaps  even  in  the  Bookman. 

"Uncle  Bill  Struthers  is  an  example  of  what  Kansas  can  do  for 
a  man  .  .  "  said  Mackworth,  when  we  were  alone.  "Bill,  in  the  old 
days,  was  a  sort  of  tramp  printer  .  ,  clever,  but  with  all  his  ability 
in  him  unexpressed  .  .  he  was  always  down  and  out  .  .  and  drink! 
It  verged  on  dipsomania.  He  never  held  a  job  long  .  .  though  he 
was  a  good  compositor,  he  was  always  on  the  move  from  place  to 
place.  .  . 

"Then  he  came  to  Kansas  where  we  have  prohibition  .  .  and  it 
has  panned  out  in  Uncle  Bill's  case  pretty  fine. 

"He  came  to  work  for  me  .  .  fell  by  chance  into  his  prose-poetry 
vein.  It  took;  was  instantly  copied  in  all  the  newspapers  .  .  of 
course,  I  could  do  it  as  well,  or  anyone  else  with  a  rhyming  turn  .  . 
but  he  was  the  originator  .  .  and  people  liked  his  sturdy  common 
sense,  his  wholesome  optimism. 

"Now  Bill  is  happy ;  his  stuff's  syndicated — in  thousands  of  house- 
holds wherever  English  is  spoken  his  name  is  a  familiar  word.  He 
gives  whole  communities  strength  to  go  on  with  the  common  duties 
of  life." 

"And  his  drinking?" 

**He  has  conquered  that  entirely  .  .  once  every  so  often  the  fit 


254.  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

comes  over  him — the  craving  for  it — then,  when  Uncle  Bill  turns 
up  missing,  as  the  Irishman  puts  it,  none  of  us  worries.  .  . 

"We  all  know  he  has  hitched  up  his  horse  and  buggy  and  is  off, 
driving  and  driving  and  driving  across  country,  to  work  the  fit 
out  .  .  no,  he  never  touches  anything  stronger  than  tobacco  and 
coffee  now.  .  . 

*'In  a  few  days  he  comes  back  .  .  no  one  says  a  word  .  .  we  all 
know  .  .  and  love  and  respect  him.  .  . 

"He's  happy  now,  is  Uncle  Bill  .  .  married  a  young  wife  .  .  has 
a  home  all  his  own  .  .  money  piling  up  in  the  bank." 

Ally  Merton  smiled  quizzically  when  I  spoke  of  Uncle  Bill  to 
him.  .  . 

"Yes,  Uncle  Bill's  a  fine,  quaint  old  chap  .  .  whenever  he  has  a 
tiff  with  his  wife — of  course,  never  anything  serious — he  locks  him- 
self in  the  kitchen  .  .  closes  all  the  windows  .  .  smokes  up  terrifically 
with  his  corncob  .  .  and  plays  and  plays  for  hours  on  end  .  .  his  Red 
Seal  records  of  classical  music  of  which  he  is  so  fond. 

"This  behaviour  of  his  is  a  well-known  joke  among  us,  a  joke  with 
his  wife,  to !"  .  .  the  speaker  paused,  to  continue 

"He  has  a  good  library  and  quite  a  large  knowledge  of  the 
English  poets." 

"That  makes  it  all  the  more  terrible,"  I  replied,  "for  if  he  wrote 
his  verse-prose  out  of  ignorance,  he  might  be  somewhat  forgiven  .  . 
but  he  knows  better." 

I  gave  a  lecture  on  Keats  to  a  woman's  club.  They  paid  me  thirty 
dollars  for  the  lecture.  .  . 

**Well,  you  surely  made  a  killing  .  .  those  old  birds  will  worship 
you  for*  life,"  sniggered  Ally. 

Mackworth  and  I  had  a  farewell  talk  before  I  returned  to  Laurel. 
We  stood  again  in  front  of  his  office,  on  the  sunny  street  .  .  he  had 
come  out  to  bid  me  good-bye. 

We  talked  of  the  folk  poetry  of  America  .  .  Mackworth  recited  to 
me  several  of  the  songs  and  ballads  which  I  have  since  seen  in 
Lomax's  book  of  Cowboy  Songs  .  .  I  repeated  the  tale  of  how  I  had 
collected  the  jail-songs  that  I  subsequently  lost  while  jumping  a 
freight.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  255 

"There's  lots  of  poetry  in  American  life  .  .  Stephen  Foster 
Collins  scratched  the  surface  of  it  .  .  but  he  was  a  song  writer.  .  . 

"There's  poetry  on  farm,  ranch,  in  small  town,  big  city,  all  wait- 
ing for  the  transmuting  touch  of  the  true  singer  .  .  not  newspaper 
rhymes  .  .  neither  the  stock  eifusions  on  Night,  Love,  Death  and 
Immortality  inserted  as  tail-piece  to  stories  and  articles  in  maga- 
zines. .  . 

"There's  the  negro  mind  .  .  — ought  to  hear  them  sing,  making  up 
songs  as  they  load  and  unload  boats  along  the  Mississippi  .  .  no- 
body's ever  dug  back  into  the  black  mind  yet — why  don't  you  dp 
these  things?".  .  . 

•  •••••• 

"Good-bye,  Mister  Mackworth — I've  had  a  fine  time !" 
"Good-bye,  my  boy  .  .  be  a  good  boy  .  .  God  bless  you !" 

•  •••••• 

At  the  Harvey  Eating  House  the  manager  brought  me  out  a 
cardboard  box  neatly  packed,  full  of  all  manner  of  good  things  to 
eat,  .  . 

"Good-bye,  Ally !  thanks  for  your  hospitality,  Ally !  thank  your 
folks  for  me  again!" 

"I  will.     See  you  up  at  Laurel  some  day  soon !" 

For  Merton  was  coming  to  study  there,  in  the  fall. 

•  •••••• 

Back  in  Laurel  I  resumed  my  studies  again  in  my  intense  though 
haphazard  way.  Doctors'  degrees  and  graduation  certificates  did 
not  interest  me.  I  meditated  no  career  in  which  such  credentials 
would  stand  me  in  stead.  But  the  meat  and  substance  of  what  the 
world  had  achieved,  written,  thought — it  was  this  that  I  sought  to 
learn  and  know. 

Already  the  professors  were  beginning  to  row  about  me  and 
report  me  for  cutting  recitations.  On  the  score  of  my  scholarship 
and  my  knowing  my  subject  they  had  no  complaint.  It  was  that 
I  disrupted  their  classes  and  made  for  lax  discipline. 

But  I  seldom  cut  class  deliberately.  .  .  I  would  find  myself  lost 
in  a  book  back  in  the  "stack"  as  the  big  room  that  housed  the 
tiers  of  books  was  called.  The  day  would  be  dusking,  the  lights  of 
evening  glimmering  below  in  town,  to  my  bewildered  eyes !    The  day 


256  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

gone,  when  I  had  stepped  back  among  the  books  at  nine  o'clock,  in- 
tending to  while  away  a  half  hour  between  classes !  (Once  it  was 
Sidney's  Arcadia  that  entranced  me  so). 

Or  I  would  set  out  for  class  .  .  hatless  .  .  ray  hair  tousled  and 
long  .  .  in  my  sandals  that  were  mocked  at  by  my  colleagues  .  .  my 
books  under  arm  .  .  and  fall  into  a  reverie  that  would  fetch  me  up, 
two  miles  or  so  away,  a-stray  up  a  by-road  flanked  with  a  farm- 
house and  young  cornfields. 

Then  it  would  be  too  late  for  my  schoolday,  and  I  would  make  a 
day  of  it  .  .  would  perhaps  get  acquainted  with  some  farmer  and  his 
family,  have  dinner  and  supper  at  his  house,  and  swap  yarns  with 
him  and  the  rest  of  his  people. 

Jack  Travers  was  as  proud  of  my  foot-trip  to  Osageville  as  if 
he  had  accomplished  it  himself. 

"The  boys  out  at  the  Sig-Kappa  house  expect  three  or  four  kegs 
of  beer  in  from  Kansas  City  .  .  come  on  out  and  help  us  to  celebrate." 

"But  I  don't  drink." 

*'Go  on!  you've  told  me  about  the  time  you  did  what  you  called 
'slopping  up'  down  in  Texas !" 

*'That  was  only  once  .  .  and  since  then  I've  become  a  physical 
culturist." 

"Well,  come  and  join  the  party  anyhow  .  .  it  won't  hurt  you  to 
look  on." 

My  curiosity  impelled  me  to  accept  the  invitation  to  the  "keg 
party"  as  such  a  jamboree  was  known  among  the  students. 

The  kegs  of  beer  waited  us  at  the  station  .  .  disguised  with  mis- 
leading labels  .  .  "chemicals,  handle  with  care."  Tenderly  we 
loaded  them  on  the  waggon  that  had  been  hired.  The  driver  sat 
smiling  as  the  solicitious  students  heaved  them  up  and  secured  them 
firmly.  .  . 

We  sat  dignified  and  quiet,  till  the  outskirts  of  the  town  were 
reached  .  .  then  the  whip  was  brought  down  and  away  we  whooped, 
bouncing  along  the  country  road.  .  . 

We  whipped  off  down  the  road  into  the  open  country  with  a  roar 
of  singing  and  shouting.  We  sat  on  the  kegs  to  keep  them  from 
jumping  out,  as  we  urged  the  driver  to  ply  the  whip. 

There  was  a  corner  in  a  cornfield  that  bent  inwari,  hidden  from 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  257 

the  casual  passer-by  by  a  grove  of  Osage  orange  trees.  Here  we 
drew  up,  jumped  out,  tenderly  conveyed  the  kegs  forth  .  .  the 
ground  we  had  chosen,  in  the  corner  of  the  field,  was  too  rocky  for 
planting.    It  was  sultry  early  afternoon,  of  a  late  spring  day. 

The  driver  was  offered  a  drink. 

"Nope,"  he  shook  his  head,  grinning  wisely,  "I'm  a  teetotaler." 

"Be  back  for  us  at  dark,"  we  shouted,  as  he  jee-d  about,  heading 
toward  town  again. 

"Here's  to  old  Gregory  and  his  first  drunk!" 

Tin  cups  had  been  produced,  and  the  bung  of  one  of  the  barrels 
started  .  .  the  boys  lifted  their  full,  foaming  cups  in  unison. 

"Bottoms  up !" 

I  joined  in  the  drinking,  despite  my  previous  protestation  that 
I  would  not.  .  . 

"Where's  the  old  boy  that  runs  this  farm?" 

"All  the  family's  probably  in  town,  this  being  Saturday  after- 
noon." 

"Let's  whoop  'er  up,  then !" 

We  sang  and  shouted  at  the  top  of  our  voices. 

The  cups  had  been  four  times  filled. 

Though  I  had  poured  half  of  mine  on  the  ground,  I  already  felt 
dizzy.  But  also  a  pleasant  tingling,  a  warmth,  was  slowly  increasing 
in  my  nerves  and  veins  and  body  .  .  an  increased  sense  of  well- 
being  permeated  me.  I  stopped  spilling  my  beer  on  the  ground 
and  drank  it  eagerly. 

Someone  proposed  races  up  and  down  the  cornfield.  We  rolled  up 
our  trousers,  to  make  it  more  hilarious,  and  ran,  smashing  through 
the  tender  spring  growth  .  .  yelling  and  shouting.  .  . 

Then  the  game  unaccountably  shifted  into  seeing  who  could  pull 
up  the  most  corn  stalks,  beginning  at  an  equal  marked-off  space 
out  in  each  row  and  rushing  back  with  torn-up  handfuls.  .  . 

The  afternoon  dropped  toward  twilight  and  everybody  was  as 
mellow  as  the  departing  day — ^which  went  down  in  a  riot  of  gold.  .  . 

A  great  area  of  the  field  looked  as  if  it  had  fallen  in  the  track 
of  a  victorious  army,  or  had  been  fallen  upon  by  a  cloud  of  locusts. 

A  chill  came  in  with  twilight,  and  we  built  a  fire,  and  danced  about 
it. 

I  danced  and  danced  .  .  we  all  danced  and  howled  in  Indiaq 
disharmony  .  .  wailing  .  .  screeching  .  .  falling  .  .  getting  up  again  ,  , 


258  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

when  I  danced  and  leaped  the  world  resumed  its  order  .  .  when  I 
stood  still  or  sat  down  plump,  the  trees  took  up  the  gyrations  where 
I  had  left  off,  and  went  about  in  solemn,  ringing  circles  .  .  green 
and  graceful  minuets  of  nature.  .  . 

"Here's  to  good  old  Gregory,  drink  'er  down,  drink  'er  down!" 
I  heard  the  boys,  led  by  Jack  Travers,  bray  discordantly. 

"Want  'a  hear  some  songs?"  I  quavered,  interrogating. 

"What  kind  o'  songs?"  asked  a  big,  hulking  boy  that  we  called 
*Black  Jim,'  because  of  his  dark  complexion. 

"Real  songs,"  I  replied,  "jail  songs,  tramp  songs,  coacaine  songs  !" 

All  those  Rabelaisan  folk-things  I  had  lost  while  hopping  the 
freight,  came  surging  back,  each  not  in  fragments,  but  entire. 
Drunk,  I  did  then  what  my  brain  since,  intoxicated  or  sober,  cannot 
do  .  .  I  rendered  them  all,  one  after  the  other,  just  as  I  had  copied 
them  down.  .  . 

"And  more !  Gregory,  more !"  the  boys  kept  shouting. 

I  sat  down  and  began  to  cry  because  I  had  lost  the  script.  It 
had  all  gone  out  of  my  head  again  as  quickly  as  it  had  come,  so 
that  I  could  not  even  repeat  one  they'd  asked  for. 

"Hell,  he's  got  a  crying  drunk  the  first  thing !" 

"Cheer  up,  old  scout  .  .  here's  another  cupful." 

"No  .  .  I  don't  want  any  more  .  .  I'm  never  going  to  drink  again." 

And  I  knocked  the  cup  out  of  Travers'  hand  with  a  violent  drunken 
sweep  of  negation. 

*'No  use  getting  huffy  about  it,"  someone  put  in  belligerently. 

"If  anybody  wants  to  fight,"  it  was  Black  Jim,  huge  and  menacing 
and  morose,  advancing.  .  . 

Fight !  knives  !  j  ails  !  .  . 

Ah,  yes,  I  was  still  in  jail  .  .  and  Bud  and  the  burly  cotton  thief 
were  at  it.  .  . 

I  staggered  to  my  feet. 

"Wait  a  minute.  Bud  .  .  I'm  coming."  I  gave  a  run  toward  a 
barrel,  sent  it  a  violent  kick,  a  succession  of  kicks.  .  . 

"Wait  a  minute!  I'm  coming!" 

"So  am  I !"  grinned  Black  Jim  belligerently,  thinking  I  meant 
him  and  advancing  slowly  and  surely. 

The  barrel  burst  asunder,  the  beer  sumped  and  gurgled  about 
my  ankles  as  I  stooped  and  picked  up  a  stave. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  259 

"The  damn  fool's  ruined  a  whole  keg." 

I  was  going  to  lick  everybody  in  the  jail,  if  I  must. 

"Put  that  stave  down  Gregory !  put  it  down,  for  Christ's  sake !" 

"Good  God !    Grab  Jim,  someone !" 

"Don't  be  a  fool  .  .  hold  Gregory  .  .  he's  got  the  stave !" 

"He'll  kill  Jim!" 

"Or  Jim'll  kill  him !"  .  . 

Then  came  a  shout  from  nearby. 

"I'll  heve  the  law  on  ye,  I  will!  destroyin'  a  man's  cornfield  like 
a  lot  o'  heathens !" 

Yelling  and  menacing,  the  farmer  and  his  big,  raw-boned  son 
were  upon  us.  They  evidently  thought  that  we  were  all  in  such  a 
drunken  condition  that  they  could  kick  us  about  as  they  choose. 
They  had  just  driven  home  from  market-day  in  Laurel. 

Everything  was  mixed  up  in  my  head  .  .  but  one  thing  out-stood : 
I  must  do  my  duty  by  my  barrel  stave  .  .  as  the  farmer  leaped  into 
the  circle  he  did  not  notice  me  staggering  on  the  outskirts.  I 
rushed  up  and  let  him  have  the  barrel  stave  full  across  the  head. 

At  the  same  time  Black  Jim  had  turned  his  attention  to  the 
rangy  boy,  felling  him  at  a  blow.  The  boy  leaped  to  his  feet  and 
ran  away  to  a  safe  distance. 

"Paw!"  he  called  out,  'I'll  run  back  to  th'  house  an'  'phone  th' 
p'hce." 

"Come  on,  boys,  we'd  better  dig  out !" 

We  straggled  along  in  silent,  rolling  clusters,  like  bees  smoked 
out,  down  the  road  .  .  we  heard  the  rumble  of  a  waggon  .  .  when 
we  recognised  that  it  was  our  teetotaler  coming  back  for  us.  .  . 

"God,  if  my  old  man  hears  of  this  I'm  done  for  at  Laurel." 

"So'm  I !" 

"If  we  only  lay  low  and  don't  go  spouting  off  about  it,  things 
will  be  all  O.K." 

"We'll  send  Travers  back  with  a  little  collection,  to  fix  it  up  with 
the  farmer,  and  blarney  him  out  of  taking  any  action." 

In  the  morning  I  had  a  roaring  headache  .  .  as  long  as  I  lay 
quiet  there  was  only  the  slow,  deep  regular  pulse  of  pain  driving 
through  my  head,  but  when  I  made  an  effort  to  get  up,  my  eyeballs 


260  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

throbbed  with  such  torment  that  they  seemed  to  be  starting  out  of 
my  head.  .  . 

I  fell  asleep  in  the  broad  day  again,  waking  to  find  Jack  Travers 
standing  by  my  bed,  pale  and  cynical,  dusting  off  the  ashes  from  the 
end  of  his  eternal  cigarette. 

"How  are  you  feeling  this  morning?" 

"Rotten,"  I  answered.  I  sat  up  and  triphammers  of  pain  re- 
newed their  pounding  inside  my  racked  head. 

— "thought  you  would,  so's  soon  as  I  got  up,  I  came  down  to  see 
you." 

—"lot  of  good  that'll  do." 

He  whipped  a  flask  out  of  his  hip  pocket.  "Take  a  nip  of  this 
and  it  will  set  you  right  in  a  jiify." 

"No,  I'll  never  drink  another  drop." 

"Don't  be  a  fool.  Just  a  swallow  and  you'll  be  on  your  feet 
again." 

I  took  a  big  swallow  and  it  braced  me  up  instantly. 

"Now,  come  on  with  me,  Johnnie,  I'm  taking  you  in  tow  for 
to-day!  A  fellow  who's  not  used  to  getting  drunk  always  mopes 
around  after  a  good  time  like  we  had  .  .  I'm  seeing  you  through  the 
day  after  .  .  you're  going  to  lunch  with  me  at  the  frat-house  and 
this  afternoon  there's  a  sacred  concert  on  in  Aeolian  Hall  that  I 
have  two  tickets  for." 

"I'll  never  drink  another  drop  as  long  as  I  live." 

"That's  what  they  all  say." 

At  the  Sig  Kappas  I  met  Black  Jim,  the  first  one,  at  the  door. 
He  shook  hands  shyly,  laughingly. 

"You  sure  fetched  that  rube  a  wallop  .  .  he  let  one  croak  out  of 
him  and  flopped  flat  .  .  it  would  have  made  a  good  comic  picture." 

"Lunch  is  ready,  boys !" 

I  was  made  into  a  sort  of  hero — "a  real,  honest-to-God  guy." 

"You'll  have  to  come  to  some  of  our  frat  jamborees  .  .  Jack'll 
bring  you  up." 

"We  and  the  Sigma  Deltas  are  Southern  fraternities  .  .  we 
have  a  hell  of  a  sight  more  fun  than  the  others  .  .  there's  the  Sigma 
Pis — though  they  have  some  live  birds,  they're  mostly  dead  .  . 
and  the  Phi  Nus  put  on  too  much  side  .  .  the  Beta  Omicrons  are 
right  there  with  the  goods,  though." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  261 

«I  see." 

A  little  freshman  made  an  off-colour  remark. 

"You'd  better  go  and  see  Jennie !"  advised  a  genial  young  senior, 
who,  for  all  his  youth,  was  entirely  bald. 

"Jennie,  who's  Jennie?"  I  asked,  curious. 

"Our  frat  woman!"  answered  Travers  casually. 

"Frat  woman?"  I  was  groping  for  further  information,  puzzled. 

"Yes,  often  a  fraternity  keeps  a  woman  for  the  use  of  its 
members  .  .  when  a  kid  comes  to  us  so  innocent  he's  annoying,  we 
turn  him  over  to  Jennie  to  be  made  a  man  of." 

"This  innocence-stuff  is  over-rated.  It's  better  to  send  a  kid  to 
a  nice,  clean  girl  that  we  club  in  together  and  keep,  and  let  him 
learn  what  life  is,  once  and  for  all,  than  to  have  him  going  off 
somewhere  and  getting  something,  or,  even  worse,  horning  around 
and  jeopardizing  decent  girls,  as  he's  bound  to  otherwise." 


There  were  signs  of  failure  at  the  Farmers'  Restaurant.  The 
curious  farmer-family  that  ran  it  were  giving  it  up  and  moving 
back  into  the  country  again.  I  was  soon  to  have  no  place  to  board, 
where  I  could  obtain  credit. 

But  it  was  summer  by  now,  and  I  didn't  care.  I  meditated 
working  in  the  wheat  harvest. 


The  editors  of  the  National  Magazine  had  given  a  new  impulsion 
to  my  song — and  a  damned  bad  one.  Already  they  had  accepted  and 
printed  several  of  my  effusions. 

I  was  to  sing  for  them  the  life  of  present-day  America,  the 
dignity  of  labour,  the  worth  of  the  daily,  obscure  endeavour  of  the 
world  around  me.  .  . 

In  other  words,  instead  of  flattering  one  man  of  influence  and 
power  with  a  dedication,  as  was  done  by  the  poets  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  I  was  to  install  Demos  as  my  patron, 
must  warp  the  very  tissue  of  my  thought  to  inform  the  ordinary 
man  that  the  very  fact  that  he  wore  overalls,  acquired  callouses  on 
his  hands,  and  was  ignorant  and  contemptuous  of  culture — somehow 
made  him  a  demigod !  I  was  continually  to  glorify  the  stupidity  of 
the  people,  and  always  append  a  moral. 


262  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

For  a  time  I  even  succeeded  in  working  myself  up  into  a  lathering 
frenzy  of  belief  in  what  I  was  doing. 

The  bedrock  of  life  in  the  Middle  West  is  the  wheat  harvest. 

There  was  a  man  named  Carl  Bonton  who  owned  a  threshing 
machine.     I  heard  he  was  in  need  of  hands  for  the  season. 

I  nailed  my  few  books  up  in  a  drygoods  box  and  left  them  in 
care  of  Professor  Langworth's  housekeeper,  the  former  having  gone 
away  to  Colorado  for  the  summer.  As  for  clothes,  tramp-life  had 
taught  me  the  superfluity  of  more  than  a  change  of  shirts  and  b.v.d's. 

Bonton  looked  me  over. 

"You  don't  look  strong  enough  .  .  the  work  is  mighty  hard." 

"I'm  pretty  wiry.  Try  me  out,  that  is  all  I  ask.  If  I  buckle  in, 
I  won't  mind  walking  back  to  town." 

Bonton's  buckboard  carried  us  the  matter  of  five  miles  to  where 
his  machine,  separator  and  cook-shack  stood  .  .  lurking  behind  a 
grove  of  Osage  orange  trees. 

Bonton  had  brought  two  other  men  besides  me,  as  accessories  to 
his  gang.  We  found  the  gang  just  tumbling  forth  from  the  cook 
waggon,  a  small,  oblong  sort  of  house  on  wheels  .  .  a  long  table  in  it, 
with  benches  .  .  much  like  the  lunch  waggons  seen  standing  about 
the  streets  in  cities. 

*'Hello,  boys,  is  it  dry  enough  to  begin  loadin'  yet?" 

"Naw ;  the  dew's  still  as  heavy  as  rain  on  the  bundles." 

"We'd  best  wait  a  little  longer,  then." 

•  •••••• 

Though  it  seemed  that  half  the  day  had  wheeled  by  already,  by 
seven  o'clock  we  rode  a-field,  and  the  less  experienced  of  us  were 
hard  at  it,  tossing  up  bundles  to  the  loaders,  who  placed  them  swiftly 
here  and  there  till  the  waggons  were  packed  tight  and  piled  high. 

I  pitched  up  bundles  from  below,  to  an  old  man  of  sixty,  who 
wore  a  fringe  of  grey  beard,  like  a  Mennonite. 

"I  don't  see  why  Bonton  ever  hired  you,"  he  remarked  unsympa- 
thetically,  peering  over  the  top  at  me  from  his  high-piled  load. 
Several  times  I  had  missed  the  top  and  the  bundle  of  wheat  had 
tumbled  back  to  me  again.  .  . 

"I  can't  be  reaching  out  all  the  time  to  catch  your  forkfuls." 

*'Just  give  me  time  till  I  learn  the  hang  of  it." 

I  was  better  with  the  next  load.     The  waggons  came  and  went 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  263 

one  after  the  other  .  .  there  was   a  light  space  of  rest  between 
waggons.     It  was  like  the  rest  between  the  rounds  of  a  prizefight. 

From  the  cloudless  sky  the  sun's  heat  poured  down  in  floods. 
A  monotonous  locust  was  chirr-chirr-chirring  from  a  nearby  cotton- 
wood  .  .  and  in  the  long  hedge  of  Osage  oranges  moaned  wood 
doves.  .  . 

By  noon  I  had  achieved  a  mechanical  swing  that  helped  relieve 
the  physical  strain,  a  swinging  rhythm  of  the  hips  and  back  muscles 
which  took  the  burden  off  my  aching  and  weaker  arms. 

That  afternoon,  late,  when  the  old  man  drove  his  waggon  up  to 
me  for  the  hundredth  time  it  seemed,  he  smiled  quizzically. 

"Well,  here  you  are  still,  but  you're  too  skinny  to  stand  it  another 
day  .  .  better  draw  your  two  bucks  from  the  boss  and  strike  out 
for  Laurel  again." 

— "that  so,  Daddy !"  and  I  caught  three  bundles  at  once  on  the 
tines  of  my  fork  and  flung  them  clear  to  the  top,  and  over.  They 
caught  the  old  man  in  the  midriff  .  .  I  heard  a  sliding  about  and 
swearing  .  .  the  next  moment  he  was  in  a  heap,  on  the  ground  .  .  on 
the  other  side  of  the  waggon. 

"What  th'  hell  did  ye  do  that  for?" 

I  looked  innocent.     "Do  what  ?" 

— "soak  me  in  the  guts  with  three  bundles  to  onct  an'  knock  me 
off'n  the  top  of  the  load?" 

*'Ever  since  morning  you've  been  kidding  me  and  telling  me  I 
went  too  slow  for  you  .  .  I  thought  I'd  speed  up  a  bit." 

After  surveying  me  scornfully  for  a  minute,  he  mutely  reascended 
the  load,  and  we  finished  the  job  in  silence  together.   .  . 

We  laboured  on  after  sunset  till  the  full  moon  swung  over  the 
tree-tops. 

•  •••••• 

Usually  they  did  not  use  the  cook-shack  much  .  .  it  was  used 
while  on  the  road  from  one  wheat  farm  to  another.  Usually  the 
farmers'  wives  and  daughters  in  the  valleys  and  on  the  hillsides 
vied  with  each  other  as  to  heaping  food  before  the  threshers  .  . 
every  morning  saw  mountains  of  pancakes  .  .  bacon  .  .  eggs  .  . 
ham  .  .  beefsteak  .  .  we  laboured  like  giants,  ate  like  hogs,  slept  like 
senseless  stocks. 

I  climbed  to  my  bed  in  the  haymow  that  first  night.  It  was 
chill  enough  for  the  use  of  my  blanket. 


264  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  drowsed  off,  to  wake  with  a  jump  of  all  my  body  from  a  dream 
that  a  giant  was  pressing  down  on  me,  that  he  had  my  legs  doubled 
up  over  me  and  was  breaking  them  into  my  breast.  .  . 

The  cramps.   .  . 

I  stood  up  and  rubbed  my  legs  till  the  taut  tendons  softened  and 
stretched  .  .  but  when  I  dared  bend  them  the  littlest,  the  tautening 
and  drawing  twisted  them  again.  And  so  I  suffered  half  the  night 
through,  till,  in  wrathful  agony,  I  stumbled  to  the  watering  trough 
and  stood  naked-white  in  the  flood  of  the  full  moon,  rubbing  the 
icy  water  over  my  body.  .  . 

The  dutiful  house  dogs  .  .  barking  furiously,  the  two  of  them 
rushed  at  my  apparition  as  I  stood  up  in  the  trough  and  splashed. 
They  embayed  me  as  a  quarry.  I  jumped  out  of  the  trough  and 
threw  stones  at  them.  They  backed  from  my  attack  and  bit  at  the 
stones.  I  stepped  back  in  the  water  and  rubbed  myself  more.  The 
dogs  squatted  on  their  haunches  at  a  safe  distance  and  bayed 
lugubriously  at  me  and  the  moon  in  common. 

The  rest  of  the  night  I  lay  preternaturally  awake,  hearing  the 
snoring  and  murmuring  of  my  fellows  in  the  mow  .  .  hearing  the 
horses  as  they  crunched  and  whickered  .  .  all  the  noises  of  the 
outside  night  came  in  at  the  open  door  of  the  mow.  Even  the 
hay  began  to  annoy  me  as  it  continually  rustled  in  my  ear. 

I  took  my  blanket  and  went  to  lie  on  the  hard  ground,  under 
the  water  waggon.  There  I  heard  the  multitudinous  insects  of  the 
night,  and  the  whippoorwill. 

Ordinarily  I  do  not  have  an  appetite  for  breakfast.  That  morning 
I  thought  I  would  eat  little,  but  I  ended  by  devouring  six  eggs,  two 
dozen  pancakes,  drinking  three  cups  of  coffee  .  .  all  of  which 
immediately  lay  like  a  lump  of  rock  in  me.  .   . 

No,  I  could  not  keep  it  up !  It  was  too  much  of  an  effort,  such 
frightful  labour,  for  sixteen  hours  of  the  day.  But  I  thought  of  the 
old  man  who  had  jeered  at  me,  and  I  trudged  a-field  with  the  rest, 
my  fork  slung  over  my  shoulder  .  .  sore  .  .  I  ached  in  every  muscle 
.  .  muscles  I  never  knew  existed  before  talked  to  me  with  their  little 
voices  of  complaint. 

But  after  the  first  load  I  began  to  be  better.  .  . 

And  by  noon  I  was  singing  and  whistling  irrepressibly. 

"You'll  do  .  .  but  you'll  have  to  put  a  hat  on  or  you'll  drop  with 
sun-stroke,"  Bonton  remarked. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  265 

"I  never  wear  a  hat." 

**A11  right.  It's  your  funeral,  not  mine,'*  and  the  boss  walked 
away. 

•  •••••« 

"Have  a  nip  and  fortify  yourself  against  the  sun  .  .  that's  the 
way  to  do,"  suggested  the  old  driver.    He  proffered  his  whiskey  flask. 

"Nope  .  .  I've  plenty  of  water  to  drink." 

The  water  boy  kept  trailing  about  with  his  brown  jug.  I  tipped 
it  up  to  my  mouth  and  drank  and  drank  .  .  I  drank  and  drank  and 
worked  and  worked  and  sweated  and  sweated  .  .  the  top  of  my 
head  perspired  so  that  it  felt  cool  in  the  highest  welter  of  heat. 

In  the  hot  early  afternoon  I  saw  the  old  man  lying  under  a  tree. 

"What's  the  matter.?" 

—"too  hot !" 

''Where's  your  whiskey  now.?" 

— "  'tain't  the  whiskey.  That  keeps  a  fellow  up  ,  .  it's  because  I'm 
old,  not  young,  like  you,"  he  contested  stubbornly. 

These  men  that  I  worked  with  were  unimaginably  ignorant.  One 
night  we  held  a  heated  argument  as  to  whether  the  stars  were  other 
worlds  and  suns,  or  merely  lights  set  in  the  sky  to  light  the  world 
of  men  by  .  .  which  latter,  the  old  man  maintained,  was  the  truth, 
solemnly  asserting  that  the  Bible  said  so,  and  that  all  other  belief 
was  infidelity  and  blasphemy.  So  it  was  that,  each  evening,  despite 
the  herculean  labour  of  the  day,  we  drew  together  and  debated  on 
every  imaginable  subject.   .  . 

On  the  third  day  of  my  employment  by  him,  Bonton  put  me  at 
the  mouth  of  the  separator,  where  the  canvas  ran  rapidly  in,  carry- 
ing the  bundles  down  into  the  maw  of  the  machine.  My  job  was 
feeding  the  bundles  to  it  .  .  up  in  the  air  in  the  back  the  threshed 
straw  was  kicked  high,  and  the  chaff  whirled  in  dusty  clouds  .  . 
from  a  spout  in  the  side  of  the  separator  the  threshed  grain  poured 
in  an  unending  stream.  .  . 

It  was  difficult  to  keep  the  horses  from  the  straw  stacks  that 
the  daily  threshing  built  up. 

Also  Bonton  speeded  so  terrifically  that  much  of  the  grain  was 
shot  out  into  the  straw.  .  . 


266  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

One  night  three  of  the  horses  made  their  way  to  the  straw  and 
ate  and  gorged  .  .  in  the  morning  one  of  them  was  dead  and  the 
other  two  were  foundered.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

The  cramps  bothered  me  no  more. 

The  boss  came  up  to  me  and  slapped  me  on  the  back. 

*' — thought  you'd  sag  under,"  but,  putting  his  hand  on  my  back, 
*'you've  got  powerful  back  muscles,  though  your  arms  and  legs  are 
like  beanpoles  .  .  a  fellow  never  can  tell  about  a  man,  till  he's 
tried  out." 

After  nearly  a  month  of  the  work,  Bonton  began  acting  glum 
toward  me.  .  . 

''Gregory,  I'm  going  to  pay  you  off  to-day!" 

" — pay  me  off  to-day?" 

"Yes." 

"What's  the  matter?  ain't  I  working  hard  enough?" 

"I've  no  fault  to  find  with  your  work  .  .  you're  a  better  worker 
than  most  of  the  men  .  .  in  fact  they  complain  that  you  set  too 
hard  a  pace  at  the  separator.  .  . 

"But  you  argue  too  much  .  .  keep  the  men  up  o'  nights  debating 
about  things  they  never  even  considered  before.  And  it  upsets 
them  so,  what  with  the  arguing  and  the  sleep  they  lose,  that  they 
ain't  up  to  the  notch,  next  day. 

"No,  that's  the  only  fault  I  have  to  find  in  you,"  he  continued, 
as  he  counted  out  sixty  dollars  into  my  hand.  .  .  "but,"  and  he 
walked  with  me,  disquieted  to  the  road,  "but  if  you'll  wait  around 
till  this  afternoon,  I'll  drive  you  back  to  town." 

"No.     It's  not  over  ten  miles.     I'll  walk." 

I  was  glad  to  be  paid  off.  I  was  missing  my  books  and  my 
leisure,  longing  for  the  cool  alcoves  of  books  in  the  university 
"stack."' 

"You  understand  me,  I  hope  .  .  business  is  business  and  work 
is  work.    I've  found  it  doesn't  do  to  argue  .  .  only  stirs  up  trouble.  .  . 

"I  hope  you  don't  think  all  this  debating  will  end  after  you're 
gone?  .  .  Oh,  no, — for  the  next  week  or  so  the  boys  will  continue 
shooting  their  mouths  off  .  .  the  Baptist  will  fight  the  Methodist, 
and  both  will  join  against  the  Seventh  Day  Adventist  .  .  and  the 
one  Catholic  will  be  assailed  by  all  hands.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  267 

"Before  you  came,  no  one  knew  what  the  other  fellow  believed, 
and  no  one  cared  .  .  but  now  you've  started  something." 

"I'm  sorry,  Mr.  Bonton." 

"It  can't  be  helped  now  .  .  don't  fail  to  let  me  know  in  what 
magazines  your  poems  on  threshing  and  the  harvest  will  appear." 

I  trudged  townward,  light-hearted  .  .  a  poem  began  to  come  to 
me  before  I  had  gone  a  mile  .  .  at  intervals  I  sat  down  and  wrote 
a  few  lines.   .  . 

That  fall  the  National  Magazine  printed  The  Threshers  and 
The  Harvest  and  The  Cook-Shack,  three  poems,  the  fruit  of  that 
work.  All  three  written  on  the  road  as  I  walked  back  to  town  .  . 
and  all  three  didactic  and  ridiculous  in  their  praise  of  the  worker. 

•  •••••• 

Frank  Randall,  tinsmith  and  plumber,  who  ran  his  shop  on  the 
main  street,  rented  me  a  back  room  over  his  store,  for  two  dollars 
a  week.  It  had  been  occupied  by  big  Sam,  the  negro  shoemaker,  and 
it  was  neither  in  order,  nor  did  it  smell  very  sweet.  But  I  cleaned 
and  aired  it,  and  sprinkled  disinfectant  about  that  I  had  bought  at 
the  drug  store. 

Then  I  fetched  my  books  down  from  Langworth's  in  a  wheel- 
barrow, and  I  set  them  up  in  several  neat  rows. 

I  lay  back  on  my  cot  and  looked  at  them  in  satisfaction  and 
happiness.  I  had  enough  for  food  and  lodging  for  nearly  three 
months,  if  I  cooked  for  myself.  Two  dollars  a  week  for  food  and 
two  for  rent,  and  I'd  do  my  own  washing  .  .  say  five  a  week  at  the 
most !  that  would  mean  twelve  weeks  of  doing  nothing  but  reading 
and  writing  and  studying. 

The  first  day  of  my  sojourn  over  the  tinsmith's  shop,  Sunday,  I 
drew  down  from  the  shelf  my  Heinrich  Heine  .  .  in  German  .  .  one 
of  the  tasks  I  set  myself,  during  that  three  months,  was  the  making 
an  intensive  study  of  just  how  Heine  had  "swung"  the  lyric  form 
to  such  conciseness,  such  effectiveness  of  epigrammatic  expression. 

I  opened  the  Buch  der  Lieder  at  the  poem  in  his  preface — the 
song  of  the  sphinx  in  the  enchanted  wood  .  .  and  how  it  clutched 
the  seeker,  the  poet,  to  its  monstrous  but  voluptuous  woman's 
breasts  as  it  ravished  his  soul  with  kisses.  And  the  nightingale 
was  singing.  .  . 


268  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

**0,  shone  Sphinx,  O  lose  mir 
Das  Ratsel,  das  wunderbare! 
Ich  hab'  dariiber  nachgedacht 
Schon  manche  tausand  Yahre." 
•  •••••• 

Monday  morning  .  .  by  six  or  seven  o'clock  a  rustling  below,  in 
the  shop,  by  eight,  the  day's  work  in  full  blast  .  .  a  terrific  pound- 
ing and  hammering  on  sheets  of  tin  and  pieces  of  pipe.  The  uproar 
threw  my  mind  off  my  poetry. 

I  went  down  to  speak  with  Randall  about  it.  .  . 

"Frank,  I  can't  stand  this,  I  must  leave." 

"Nonsense;  stay;  you'll  get  used  to  it." 

"No,  I  must  go  if  the  noise  keeps  up  continually  like  this." 

"Well,  it  won't  .  .  we  have  a  special  job  to  finish  .  .  tin-roofing  .  , 
but  if  you  want  a  place  to  stay  where  it  is  quiet,  I  have  a  camp, 
not  far  out,  on  the  Ossawatomie,  where  I  go  for  week-ends.  .  ." 

"Where  is  it?    That  would  be  fine.    I'd  like  to  stay  there." 

"You  know  where  old  Farmer  Brown  lives,  by  the  abandoned 
church,  just  outside  of  Perthville?" 

"Yes.     That's  seven  miles  out  on  the  Osageville  road." 

"Take  the  first  turn  to  the  right  from  his  house,  going  west.  It's 
an  unused  bye-road  and  it  runs  plumb  into  my  cabin.  There's  a 
frying  pan  there  .  .  and  some  flour  .  .  and  bacon  .  .  tell  you  what  .  . 
it's  been  broken  into  several  times.  I'll  consider  it  worth  while  if 
you  go  and  live  there,  and  I  get  no  rent  from  you  for  it  nor  the 
room  upstairs  .  .  you'll  be  alone,  God  knows — excepting  Saturdays 
and  Sundays." 

•  •••••• 

I  packed  my  Heine  in  a  bundle  .  .  with  my  Bible  and  my  Josephus 
in  the  Greek,  along  with  Whiston's  English  version  .  .  and  I  included 
a  bundle  of  books  on  New  Testament  times  that  made  me  groan 
under  their  weight.  For  I  planned  to  begin  a  four-act  play  on 
Judas,  and  must  study  for  writing  that,  as  well  as  learn  the  "how" 
of  the  lyric.  .  . 

The  stupendousness  of  the  silence  of  absolute  solitude!  At  first 
the  thoughts  run  on  with  a  tangle  and  jangle,  a  turmoil  almost  of 
madness  .  .  then  they  quiet  down  into  the  peace  that  only  a  hermit- 
age gives  and  the  objects  of  life  are  seen  in  their  true  relativity  and 
perspective. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  269 

My  diet  was  one  of  sow-belly,  bread,  and  coffee,  and  what  fish  I 
caught  in  the  sluggish,  muddy  stream.  .  . 

Saturday,  toward  sunset,  I  heard  a  whooping  in  the  woods.  It 
was  Randall  coming  with  a  few  friends  for  his  week-end,  as  he  had 
warned.  With  him,  his  wild  brother.  Jack ;  and  Bill,  his  assistant 
plumber  and  man-about-shop. 

The  drinking  had  begun  before  they  were  in  sight  of  the  shack. 
And  it  was  kept  up  till  late  Sunday  night  .  .  around  a  big  fire  in 
a  cleared  space  they  sang  and  gambled  and  drank. 

Randall  served  great  hilarity  to  the  party  by  trying  to  breed 
his  gelded  horse  to  his  mare  .  .  the  mare  kicked  and  squealed,  indig- 
nant at  the  cheat,  looking  back,  flattening  her  ears,  and  showing 
the  vicious  whites  of  her  eyes.  Several  times  the  infuriated  beast's 
heels  whished  an  inch  or  so  from  Randall's  head,  as  he  forced  the 
gelding  to  advance  and  mount.  We  rolled  on  the  grass,  laughing  .  . 
myself  included. 

Then  all  stripped  to  the  buff  for  a  swim  in  the  stream  .  .  a  treach- 
erous place  where  the  bottom  was  at  times  but  two  or  three  feet 
from  the  surface,  and  the  mud,  soft  and  semi-liquid  for  five  feet 
more.  And  there  were  snags,  and  broken  beer  and  whiskey  bottles 
all  over  the  bottom  where  it  was  decent  and  gravelly. 

Bill,  with  his  solemn  dundreary  whiskers,  leaped  high  in  the  air 
like  a  frog,  kicking  his  legs  and  yelling  drunkenly  as  he  took  off. 

"Look  out,  Bill,"  I  shouted,  "it's  nothing  but  mud  there !" 

But  Bill  didn't  heed  me.  He  hit  with  a  swish  and  a  thud  instead 
of  a  splash,  and  didn't  come  up. 

We  put  out  in  our  rickety  boat. 

By  that  luck  that  favours  the  drunkard  and  fool,  we  laid  hold 
on  Bill's  feet  sticking  out,  just  under  the  water.  We  tugged 
mightily  and  brought  him  forth,  turned  into  a  black  man  by  the 
ooze  .  .  otherwise,  unharmed. 

It  was  not  till  two  hours  after  midnight  that  they  whisked  away 
townward  and  left  me  alone,  so  that  the  graciousness  of  silence 
could  enfold  me  again.  I  looked  forward  to  a  week's  peace,  before 
they  descended  on  the  camp  again.  But  I  had  a  premonition  that 
there  was  to  be  no  peace  for  me  there.  For  Randall  had  said  to 
me  before  he  drove  away.  .  . 

"You  know  Pete  Willets?     Well,  he's  liable  to  come  here  for  a 


276  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

few  days,  during  the  week  .  .  a  nice  quiet  fellow  though  .  .  won't 
disturb  you." 

The  thought  of  another  visitor  did  disturb  me.  Though  I  knew 
Pete  Willets  as  a  quiet,  gentle  shoemaker  in  whom  seemed  no  guile, 
I  wanted  to  be  alone  to  think  and  read  and  write. 

Wednesday  noon  Pete  Willets  drove  up,  accompanied  by  a  grubby 
woman  whom  at  first  glance  I  did  not  relish. 

"Hello,  Johnnie,  Frank  said  we  could  use  the  shack  for  a  day 
or  two." 

"Forever,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned,"  I  answered,  beginning  to  tie 
up  my  books  in  a  huge  bundle  as  big  as  a  peddler's  pack,  and  as 
heavy. 

Impatiently  tying  the  horse  to  a  post,  they  were  in  the  shack 
and  immediately  prone  on  my  bunk. 

As  I  shouldered  my  load  their  murmuring  voices  full  of  amorous 
desire  stung  me  like  a  gadfly.  I  hurried  off  toward  Laurel,  angry 
at  life. 

I  explained  to  Randall  why  I  had  left  his  camp  so  soon.  He  was 
gravely  concerned. 

"I  didn't  tell  Willets  he  could  have  my  shack  to  take  Gracie  there. 
This  is  a  bit  too  thick." 

"Who's  Gracie.?" 

" — a  bad  lot  .  .  a  girl  that's  been  on  the  turf  since  she  was  in 
knee  skirts — as  long  as  I've  known  her.  He  loves  her.  She  can 
twist  him  around  her  little  finger.  She's  going  to  get  him  into 
something  bad  some  day.  He'll  do  anything  she  wants.  And  she's 
capable  of  putting  him  up  to  anything." 

"Willets  is  weak,  when  it  comes  to  women  .  .  don't  drink  much  .  . 
a  hard  worker  .  .  everybody  likes  him.  .  . 

"Did  you  ever  notice  his  limp  .  .  only  slight  .  .  scarcely  noticeable, 
isn't  it?  .  .  he's  a  corking  mechanic  as  well  as  shoemaker  .  .  mighty 
clever  .  .  noAv  for  instance,  you  wouldn't  ever  have  known,  unless 
I  told  you,  that  his  left  leg  is  made  of  wood.'"' 

"I  wouldn't  even  suspect  it." 

" — lost  his  left  leg  when  he  was  a  brakeman  .  .  made  that  wooden 
leg  for  himself  .  .  it  works  so  smoothly  that  he's  thinking  of  taking 
out  a  patent  on  it." 

"Why  does  a  woman  take  to  a  man  with  a  wooden  leg?" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  271 

" — ^makes  good  money  .  .  and  he  has  a  way  about  him  with  the 
girls  .  .  he  goes  about  so  quietly.  He's  so  gentle  and  considerate  .  . 
acts,  but  doesn't  say  much,  you  know !  that's  what  they  like ! 

" — damned  sorry  for  his  wife  and  two  kids,  though ;  when  Willets 
comes  to  town  again  I'm  not  going  to  let  him  have  my  shack  any 
more  .  .  might  be  some  trouble  .  .  divorce  or  something." 

There  was  trouble  and  very  shortly.  In  a  month  Willets  had 
poisoned  his  wife  .  .  with  rough-on-rats  .  .  and  the  quiet  little 
shoemaker  went  to  the  penitentiary  for  life  ,  .  a  life-time  of  shoe- 
making. 

•  •••••  • 

I  rented  a  tent  and  pitched  it  on  an  island  in  the  middle  of  the 
Kaw,  or  Kansas  River.  There  I  was  alone.  I  rented  a  boat  to 
take  out  my  possessions. 

I  lived  naked  till  I  grew  brown  all  over.  I  studied  and  read  and 
wrote  to  my  full  desire,  there  in  the  grateful  silence  of  trees  and 
waters — a  solitude  broken  only  by  an  occasional  train  streaming 
its  white  trail  of  smoke  as  it  whistled  and  raced  round  the  curve  of 
shining  track  toward  Laurel. 

I  read  Josephus  entirely  through,  haltingly,  line  by  line,  in  the 
Greek.  I  read  all  the  books  the  "stack"  at  the  university  could 
afford  me  on  New  Testament  life  and  times,  in  preparation  for  my 
,play  on  Judas. 

My  only  companions  were  a  flock  of  tiny  mud-hens  with  their 
dainty  proud  little  rooster.  I  heard  them  talking  in  bird-language, 
saw  them  paddling  with  diminutive  gravity  up  and  down  in  the 
mud,  on  the  island  mud-bank  just  beneath  the  high  place  on  which 
my  tent  was  pitched. 

When  I  grew  lonesome  for  company,  human  company,  I  swam 
ashore,  my  clothes  tied  on  top  of  my  head  to  keep  them  dry,  and, 
dressing,  walked  into  Laurel.  Where  I  lounged  about  for  the  day 
on  the  streets,  or  in  the  stores,  or  in  the  livery  stables  .  .  I  knew 
everybody  and  everybody  knew  me,  and  we  had  some  fine  times, 
talking. 

I  had  access  to  the  local  Carnegie  Library  as  well  as  to  the 
university  "stack." 

My  food  did  not  cost  me  above  a  dollar  a  week.  For  I  went  on 
a  whole  wheat  diet,  and  threw  my  frying  pan  away. 


272  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  was  the  tramp,  as  ever,  only  I  was  stationary. 

The  opening  days  of  the  fall  term  came  round  again.  Summer 
tveather,  hot  and  belated,  lingered  on.  I  was  now  more  native  to 
the  river  than  to  life  in  a  four-walled  room  and  on  street  pavements. 

I  debated  seriously  whether  I  should  return  to  classes,  or  just 
keep  on  studying  as  I  was,  staying  in  my  tent,  and  taking  books 
out  at  the  two  libraries.  I  knew  that  they'd  allow  me  to  continue 
drawing  out  books  at  the  university,  even  though  I  attended  classes 
no  longer — Professor  Langworth  would  see  to  that. 

Also,  most  of  the  professors  would  whisper  "good  riddance"  to 
themselves.  I  camped  at  their  gates  too  closely  with  questions.  I 
never  accepted  anything  as  granted.  The  "good  sports"  among 
them  welcomed  this  attitude  of  mine,  especially  the  younger  bunch 
of  them — who  several  times  invited  me  to  affairs  of  theirs,  behind 
closed  blinds,  where  good  wine  was  poured,  and  we  enjoyed  fine 
times  together.   .   . 

I  was  invited  on  condition  that  I  would  not  let  the  student-body 
know  of  these  sub  rosa  -fiestas.  Which  were  dignified  and  unblame- 
worthy  .  .  only,  wine  and  beer  went  around  till  a  human  mel- 
lowness and  conversational  glow  was  reached. 

A  trifling  incident  renewed  my  resolve  to  continue  as  a  student 
regularly  enrolled.  .  . 

Though  considered  a  freak  and  nut,  I  was  generally  liked  among 
the  students,  and  liked  most  of  them  in  turn.   .   . 

They  used  frequently  to  say — "  's  too  bad  Johnnie  Gregory  won't 
act  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  he's  such  a  likeable  chap.  .  ." 

As  the  boys  came  back  to  school  I  went  about  renewing  acquaint- 
ances. 

The  afternoon  of  the  day  of  the  "trifling  incident"  I  was  return- 
ing from  a  long  visit  to  Jack  Travers  and  the  Sig-Kappas. 

It  was  about  ten  o'clock  when  I  reached  the  river-bank  opposite 
my  island.  There  was  a  brilliant  moon  up.  If  daylight  could  be 
silver-coloured  it  was  day. 

I  stood  naked  on  the  water's  elge,  ready  to  wade  out  for  my  swim 
back  to  my  island.  My  clothes  were  trussed  securely,  for  dryness, 
on  my  head. 

A  rustling,  a  slight  clearing  of  the  throat,  halted  me. 


J 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  273 

I  glanced  through  a  vista  of  bushes. 

There  sat  a  girl  in  the  full  moonlight.  She  had  a  light  easel 
before  her.  She  was  trying  to  paint,  evidently,  the  effects  of  the 
moon  on  the  landscape  and  the  river.  Painters  have  since  told  me 
that  it  is  impossible  to  do  that.  It  is  too  dark  to  see  the  colours. 
Nevertheless  the  girl  was  trying. 

I  stopped  statue-still  to  find  if  I  had  been  seen.  When  assured 
that  I  had  not,  I  slowly  squatted  down,  and,  naked  as  I  was,  crept 
closer,  hiding  behind  a  screen  of  bushes.  And  I  fastened  my  eyes 
on  her,  and  forgot  who  I  was.  For  the  moon  made  her  appear 
almost  as  plain  as  day.  And  she  was  very  beautiful.  And  I  was 
caught  in  a  sudden  trap  of  love  again. 

Here,  I  held  no  doubt,  was  my  Ideal.  I  could  not  distinguish 
the  colour  of  her  hair.    But  she  was  maiden  and  slenderly  wonderful. 

I  lay  flat,  hoping  that  she  would  not  hear  my  breath  as  she  calmly 
painted.  My  heart  beat  so  hard  it  seemed  to  shake  the  ground 
beneath  me. 

She,  too,  was  original,  what  the  world  would  call  "eccentric"  .  . 
out  here,  three  miles  from  town,  with  the  hours  verging  toward 
midnight  .  .  seated  on  the  river  bank,  trying  to  capture  the  glory 
of  the  moon  on  canvas. 

But,  unusual  as  her  action  was,  there  was  nothing  mad  about 
her  mode  of  dressing  .  .  her  white  middy  blouse,  edged  with  blue  .  . 
her  flowing  tie  .  .  her  dainty,  blue  serge  skirt  and  dainty  shoes. 

I  lay  there,  happy  in  being  near  her,  the  unknown. 

After  a  long  time  she  rose  .  .  gave  a  sigh  .  .  brushed  her  hand 
over  her  hair. 

Fascination  held  me  close  as  she  stooped  over  .  .  began  leisurely 
to  untie  her  shoes  .  .  set  them,  removed,  aside,  toe  to  toe  and  heel 
to  heel,  equal,  as  if  for  mathematical  exactness  .  .  paused  a  mo- 
ment .  .  lifted  her  skirts,  drew  off  her  garters  with  a  circular  down- 
ward sweep  .  .  drew  down  her  stockings.  .  . 

She  sat  with  her  stockings  off,  stuffed  into  her  shoes, — ^her  skirt 
up  to  her  hips,  gazing  meditatively  at  her  naked  legs  held  straight 
before  her. 

I  was  close  enough  to  hear  her  breathing — or  so  keen  in  my 
aroused  senses  that  I  thought  I  heard  it.  She  wiggled  her  toes 
to  herself  as  she  meditated. 

She  paused  as  if  hesitating  to  go  on  with  her  undressing.    A  twig 


274  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

snapped.     She  came  to  her  knees  and  looked  about,  startled,  then 
subsided  again,  tranquil  and  sure  of  her  solitude. 


She  stood  In  the  moonlight,  naked.  My  gaze  grew  fat  with 
pleasure  as  it  fed  on  her  nakedness.  .  . 

She  stepped  down  to  the  water's  edge,  dabbling  her  outstretched 
toes  in  the  flow. 

Ankle-deep,  she  stood  and  stooped.  She  scooped  up  water  and 
dashed  it  over  her  breasts.  She  rose  erect  a  moment  and  gazed 
idly  about. 

Then,  binding  her  hair  in  a  careful  knot,  she  went  in  with  a  plunge 
and  I  saw  that  she  could  swim  well. 

My  heart  shook  and  thundered  so  that  its  pulse  pervaded  all 
my  body  with  its  violence.  I  held  in  curb  a  mad,  almost  irresistible 
impulse  to  rush  in  after  her,  crying  out  that  I  was  a  poet  .  .  that 
this  was  the  true  romance  .  .  that  we  must  throw  aside  the  conven- 
tions .  .  that  no  one  would  ever  know. 

Then  I  thought  of  my  skinniness  and  ugliness  in  comparison  with 
her  slight  but  perfect  beauty.  And  I  knew  that  it  would  repel  her. 
And  I  held  still  in  utter  shame,  not  being  good-looking  enough  to 
join  her  in  the  river. 

I  lay  prone,  almost  fainting,  dizzy,  not  having  the  strength  to 
creep  away,  as  I  now  considered  I  must  do. 

I  saw  her  return  and  watched  her  as  she  slowly  resumed  her 
clothes,  piece  by  leisurely  piece.  She  folded  her  camp  stool,  packed 
her  small  easel  in  a  case  and  started  off  toward  town. 

Shouldn't  I  now  intercept  her,  explain  who  I  was,  and  offer  to 
escort  her  along  the  tracks  back  to  town?  For  it  was  surely  dan- 
gerous for  her  to  come  so  far  into  the  night,  alone.  There  were 
tramps  .  .  and  the  stray  criminal  negro  from  the  Bottoms  .  .  God 
knows  what  else,  in  her  path ! 

But  my  timidity  let  her  pass  on  alone. 

I  needed  the  coolness  of  the  water  about  me,  as  I  swam  out  to 
my  tent.  I  forgot  my  clothes  on  my  head  and  they  soused  in  the 
water  as  I  swam.  All  night  I  tossed,  sleepless.  I  lay  delirious  with 
remembrance  of  her  .  .  imagined  myself  with  her  as  I  lay  there,  and 
whispered  terms  of  love  and  endearment  into  the  dark. 

Who  was  she?    One  thing  I  knew — she  must  be  a  student,  and  an 


I 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  275 

art  student  under  Professor  Grant  in  the  Fine  Arts  Department. 
This  was  the  incident  that  decided  me  to  enroll  again  as  regular 
student,  and  to  fold  my  tent,  leave  my  solitary  island,  and  return 
to  town  .  .  where  I  sought  out  Frank  Randall,  and  he  again  offered 
me  the  room  I  had  given  up.  And  he  gave  me  work  as  his  book- 
keeper, several  hours  of  the  day  .  .  which  work  I  undertook  to 
perform  in  return  for  my  room.  In  addition  he  gave  me  two  dollars 
a  week  extra. 


One  afternoon  soon  after  my  enrollment,  I  met  Ally  Merton 
coming  down  hill. 

"Well,  here  I  am,  as  I  said  I'd  be,"  said  he. 

He  was,  as  usual,  dressed  to  perfection — not  a  minute  ahead  of 
the  style,  not  a  minute  behind  .  .  gentle-voiced  and  deferential, 
learning  to  be  everywhere  without  being  noticed  anywhere. 

"I  see  you're  still  eccentric  in  dress  .  .  sandals  .  .  shirt  open  at  the 
neck  .  .  denim  too  .  .  cheap  brown  socks  .  .  corduroys.   .  ." 

"Yes,  but  look,"  I  jested  in  reply,  "I  wear  a  tie  .  .  and  the  ends 
pull  exactly  even.  That's  the  one  thing  you  taught  me  about 
correct  dressing  that  I'll  never  forget." 

"If  I  could  only  persuade  you,  Johnnie,  of  the  importance  of 
little  things,  of  putting  one's  best  foot  forward  .  .  of  personal 
appearance  .  .  why  create  an  initial  prejudice  in  the  minds  of  people 
you  meet,  that  you'll  afterward  have  to  waste  valuable  time  in  trying 
to  remove?" 

"Where  are  you  putting  up,  Ally?" 

"At  the  Phi  Nus"  (the  bunch  that  went  in  the  most  for  style  and 
society)  "I'm  a  Phi  Nu,  keep  in  touch  with  me,  Johnnie." 

"Keep  in  touch  with  me,"  was  Merton's  stock  phrase.  .  . 

"Mr.  Mackworth  asked  me  particularly  to  look  you  up,  and  'take 
care  of  you  .  .  you  made  a  hit  with  him  .  .  but  he's  very  much  con- 
cerned about  you — thinks  you're  too  wild  and  erratic." 

The  tinshop  was  a  noisy  place,  as  I  have  said  before.  It  was  as 
uproarious  as  a  boiler  factory.  All  day  long  there  was  hammering, 
banging,  and  pounding  below  .  .  but  I  was  growing  used  to  it  .  .  as 
you  do  to  everything  which  must  be. 

Keeping  Randall's  books  occupied  a  couple  of  hours  each  morn- 


276  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

ing  or  afternoon,  whenever  I  chose.     All  the  rest  of  the  day  I  had 
free.  ,  . 


I  had  almost  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  girl  I  had  seen 
in  the  moonlight  had  been  an  apparition  conjured  up  by  my  own 
imagination,  when  I  glimpsed  her,  one  afternoon,  walking  toward 
Hewitt  Hall,  where  the  art  classes  held  session,  in  the  upper  rooms. 
I  followed  the  girl,  a  long  way  behind.  I  saw  her  go  in  through 
the  door  to  a  class  where  already  a  group  of  students  sat  about 
with  easels,  painting  from  a  girl-model  .  .  fully  clothed  .  .  for  paint- 
ing from  the  nude  was  not  allowed.  They  had  threshed  that  prop- 
osition out  long  before.  Professor  Grant  explained  to  me,  once, — 
and  the  faculty  had  decided,  in  solemn  conclave,  that  the  farmers 
throughout  the  state  were  not  yet  prepared  for  that  step.   .   . 

I  sought  Grant's  friendship.  He  had  studied  in  the  Julian  Acad- 
emy at  Paris,  in  his  youth.  He  invited  me  to  his  house  for  tea,  often; 
where  I  met  many  of  his  students,  but  never,  as  I  had  hoped,  the 
girl  of  the  moonlight.   .   . 

But  by  careful  and  guarded  inquiry  I  found  out  who  she  was  .  . 
a  girl  from  the  central  portion  of  the  state,  named  Vanna  Andrews. 

When  Grant  asked  me  to  pose  for  his  class,  sandals,  open  shirt, 
corduroys,  and  all  .  .  I  agreed  .  .  almost  too  eagerly  .  .  he  would 
pay  me  twenty-five  cents  an  hour. 

My  first  day  Vanna  was  not  there.  On  the  second,  she  came  .  . 
late  .  .  her  tiny,  white  face,  crowned  with  its  dark  head  of  hair  .  .  "a 
star  in  a  jet-black  cloud,"  I  phrased,  to  myself.  She  sailed  straight 
in  like  a  ship. 

When  she  had  settled  herself, — beginning  to  draw,  she  appraised 
me  coolly,  impartially,  for  a  moment  .  .  took  my  dimensions  for  her 
paper,  pencil  held  at  arm's  length.   .   . 

Slowly,  though  I  fought  it  back,  a  red  wave  of  confusion  surged 
over  my  face  and  neck.  I  turned  as  red  as  ochre.  I  grew  warm 
with  perspiration  of  embarrassment.  I  gazed  fixedly  out  through 
the  window.  .  . 

"You're  getting  out  of  position,"  warned  Professor  Grant. 

Vanna  still  observed  me  with  steadfast,  large,  blue  eyes.  She 
started  her  sketch  with  a  few,  first,  swift  lines. 

"Excuse  me,"  I  rose,  "I  feel  rather  ill*"  I  posed,  "I've  been  up 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  277 

all  night  drinking  strong  coffee  and  writing  poems,"  I  continued, 
my  voice  rising  in  insincere,  noisy  falsetto. 

"Step  down  a  minute  and  rest,  then,  Mr.  Gregory,"  advised  Pro- 
fessor Grant,  puzzled,  a  grimace  of  distaste  on  his  face. 

"Isn't  he  silly,"  I  overheard  a  girl  student  whisper  to  a  loud- 
dressed  boy,  whose  easiness  of  manner  with  the  female  students  I 
hated  and  envied  him  for.  .  . 

I  resumed  my  pose.  I  blushed  no  more.  I  endured  the  cool,  level, 
impersonal  glances  of  the  girl  I  had  fallen  in  love  with.   .   . 

"The  model  's  a  little  wooden,  don't  you  think,  professor?"  she 
observed,  to  tease  me,  perhaps.  She  could  not  help  but  sense  the 
cause  of  my  agitation.  But  then  she  was  used  to  creating  a  stir 
among  men.  Her  beauty  perturbed  almost  the  entire  male  student 
body. 

•  •••••• 

I  noticed  that  her  particular  chum  was  a  very  homely  girl.  I 
straightway  found  charms  in  this  girl  that  no  one  had  ever  found 
before.  And  Alice  and  I  became  friends.  And,  while  posing,  I  came 
before  the  time,  because  she,  I  discovered,  was  always  beforehand, 
touching  up  her  work. 

Alice  was  a  stupid,  clumsy  girl,  but  she  adored  Vanna  and  liked 
nothing  better  than  to  talk  about  her  chum  and  room-mate.  She 
took  care  of  Vanna  as  one  would  take  care  of  a  helpless  baby. 

"Vanna  is  a  genius,  if  there  ever  was  one  .  .  she  doesn't  know 
her  hands  from  her  feet  in  practical  affairs  .  .  but  she's  wonder- 
ful .  .  all  the  boys,"  and  Alice  sighed  with  as  much  envy  as  her 
nature  would  allow — "all  the  boys  are  just  crazy  about  her  .  .  but 
she  isn't  in  love  with  any  of  them !" 

My  heart  gave  a  great  bound  of  hope  at  these  last  words. 

"Professor  Grant's  students — about  two-thirds  of  them — ^have 
enrolled  in  his  classes,  because  she's  there." 

And  then  I  went  cold  with  jealousy  and  with  despair  .  .  one  so 
popular  could  never  see  me  .  .  if  it  were  only  later,  when  my  fame 
as  a  poet  had  come! 

•  •••••• 

"Vanna  has  to  be  waited  on  hand  and  foot.  I  don't  mind  though," 
continued  Alice,  "I  hang  up  her  clothes  for  her  .  .  make  her  bed  .  . 
sweep  and  dust  our  rooms  .  .  it  makes  me  happy  to  wait  on  any- 


278  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

thing  so  beautiful!"  and  the  face  of  the  homely  girl  glowed  with 

joy-  •  • 

I  was  poor  and  miserable.  I  bent  my  head  forward,  forgetful 
of  my  determination  to  walk  erect  and  proud,  with  a  pride  I  did 
not  possess. 

Langworth  was  coming  behind  me.  He  slapped  me  on  the  back. 
I  whirled,  full  of  resentment.  But  changed  the  look  to  a  smile 
when  I  perceived  who  it  was.   .   . 

*'Why,  Johnnie,  what's  the  matter?  you're  walking  like  an  old 
man.     Brace  up.     Is  anything  wrong?" 

"No,  I  was  just  thinking." 

•  •••••• 

The  first  cold  blasts  of  winter  howled  down  upon  us.  No  snow 
yet,  but  winds  that  rushed  about  the  buildings  on  the  hill,  full  of 
icy  rain,  and  with  a  pushing  strength  like  the  shoulders  of  invisible 
giants  out  of  the  fourth  dimension  .  .  we  men  kept  on  the  sidewalks 
when  we  could  .  .  but  the  winds  blew  the  girls  off  into  the  half- 
hardened  mud,  and,  at  times,  were  so  violent,  that  the  girls  could 
not  extricate  themselves,  but  they  stood  still,  waiting  for  help, 
their  skirts  whirling  up  into  their  very  faces. 

It  was  what  the  boys  called  "a  sight  for  sore  eyes." 
They  stood  in  droves,  in  the  sheltered  entrances  of  the  halls,  and 
occasionally  darted  out  by  ones  and  twos  and  threes  to  rescue  dis- 
tressed co-eds. 

Down  in  the  room  over  the  tin  and  plumbing  shop  in  which  I 
lived,  I  found  it  cold  indeed.  I  could  afford  no  heat  .  .  and,  believing 
in  windows  open,  knew  every  searching  drop  in  the  barometer. 

But  never  in  my  life  was  I  happier,  despite  my  secretly  cherished 
love  for  Vanna.  For  I  assured  myself  in  my  heart  of  certain  future 
fame,  the  fame  I  had  dreamed  of  since  childhood.  And  I  wore 
every  hardship  as  an  adornment,  conscious  of  the  greatness  of  my 
cause. 

Isolation ;  half-starvation ;  cold ;  inadequate  clothing ; — all 
counted  for  the  glory  of  poetry,  as  martyrs  had  accepted  perse- 
cution and  suffering  for  the  glory  of  God. 

My  two  hours  of  daily  work  irked  me.     I  wanted  the  time  for  my 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  279 

writing  and  studying  .  .  but  I  still  continued  living  above  the  din 
of  the  shop  that  I  had  grown  accustomed  to,  by  this  time. 

Rarely,  when  the  nights  were  so  subarctic  as  to  be  almost  unbear- 
able, did  I  slip  down  through  the  skylight  and  seek  out  the  compara- 
time  warmth  of  the  shop  .  .  and  there,  on  the  platform  where  the 
desk  stood  so  that  it  could  overlook  all  the  store,  I  wrote  and 
studied. 

But  Randall  said  this  worried  the  night  watchman  too  much,  my 
appearing  and  disappearing,  all  hours  of  the  night.  He  didn't 
relish  coming  every  time  to  see  if  the  store  was  being  burglarised. 

The  outside  world  was  beginning  to  notice  me.  My  poems,  two 
of  which  I  had  sold  to  the  Century,  two  to  Everybody's,  and  a  score 
to  the  Independent,  were,  as  soon  as  they  appeared  in  those  maga- 
zines, immediately  copied  by  the  Kansas  newspapers.  And  the 
Kansas  City  Star  featured  a  story  of  me  at  Laurel,  playing  up  my 
freaks  and  oddities  .  .  but  accompanied  by  a  flattering  picture  that 
"Con"  Cummins,  our  college  photographer,  had  taken. 

Also  I  was  receiving  occasional  letters  from  strangers  who  had 
read  my  poems.  But  they  were  mostly  letters  from  cranks  .  .  or 
from  girls  very,  very  young  and  sentimental,  or  on  the  verge  of 
old-maidhood,  who  were  casting  about  for  some  escape  from  the 
narrow  daily  life  that  environed  them.   .   . 

But  one  morning  a  letter  came  to  me  so  scrawlingly  addressed 
that  I  marvelled  at  the  ability  of  the  postal  authorities  in  decipher- 
ing it.  The  writer  of  it  hailed  me  as  a  poet  of  great  achievement 
already,  but  of  much  greater  future  promise.  .  .  Mr.  Lephil,  editor 
of  the  National  Magazine,  for  whom  he  was  writing  a  serial,  had 
showed  him  some  of  my  verse,  and  he  must  hasten  to  encourage  me  .  . 
I  puzzled  long  over  the  writer's  signature.  .  .  It  could  not  be  pos- 
sible !  but  it  seemed  to  be  inscribed  with  the  name  of  a  novelist  famous 
for  his  investigations  of  capitalistic  abuses  of  the  people  .  .  the 
author  of  the  sensational  novel.  The  Slaughter  House,  which  was 
said  to  out-Zola  Zola — Penton  Baxter. 

I  hurried  downstairs  from  my  attic,  to  intercept  some  friend  who 
would  confirm  me  in  my  interpretation  of  the  signature. 

It  was  Travers  I  ran  into.     I  showed  the  letter  to  him. 

"By  Jove!  It  is  Baxter!"  he  cried. 

He  was  as  overwhelmed  as  I  had  been. 


280  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Say,  Johnnie,  you  must  really  amount  to  something,  with  all 
these  people  back  East  paying  such  attention  to  you  .  .  come  on 
into  Kuhlman's  and  have  a  "coke"  with  me." 

In  Kuhlman's,  the  college  foregathering  place,  the  ice  cream  and 
refreshment  parlour  of  the  town,  we  joined  with  Jimmy  Thompson, 
our  famous  football  quarterback.  The  room  was  full  of  students 
eating  ice  cream  and  drinking  coco-cola  and  ice  cream  sodas. 

"Say,  let  me  print  this." 

"No,  but  you  may  put  an  item  in  the  Laurelian,  if  you  want  to." 

"I  must  write  a  story  for  the  Star  about  it." 

It  would  have  pleased  my  vanity  to  have  had  Jack  put  the  story 
in  the  papers,  but  I  was  afraid  of  offending  Baxter  .  .  afterward  I 
learned  that  it  would  not  have  offended  him  .  .  he  had  the  vanity  of 
a  child,  as  well  as  I. 

I  answered  his  letter  promptly,  in  terms  of  what  might  have 
seemed,  to  the  outside  eye,  excessive  adulation.  But  Penton  Baxter 
was  to  me  a  great  genius  .  .  and  nothing  I  could  have  written  in  his 
praise  would  have  overweighed  the  debt  I  owed  him  for  that  fine 
letter  of  encouragement. 

So  at  last  I  was  reaping  the  fruits  of  my  years  of  struggle  for 
the  poetic  ideal — my  years  of  poverty  and  suffering. 

A  belated  student  at  college,  twenty-five  years  of  age  .  .  a  tramp 
for  the  sake  of  my  art  .  .  as  I  sat  in  my  cold  room  .  .  propped  up 
by  my  one  overturned  chair  .  .  in  bed  .  .  betaking  myself  there  to 
keep  from  freezing  while  I  wrote  and  dreamed  and  read  and  studied, 
• — I  burst  out  singing  some  of  my  own  verses,  making  the  tune  to  the 
lines  as  I  went  along. 

"John  Gregory,  you  are  a  great  man,  and  some  day  all  the  world 
shall  know  and  acknowledge  it !"  I  said  over  and  over  again  to 
myself.  .  . 

*'And  now,  Vanna,  my  love,  my  darling,"  I  cried  aloud,  so  that 
if  anyone  overheard,  the  auditor  would  think  I  was  going  mad, 
*'now,  Vanna,  you  shall  see  .  .  in  a  year  I  shall  have  my  first  book 
of  poetry  out  .  .  and  fame  and  money  for  royalties  will  be  mine  .  . 
then  I  will  dare  speak  to  you  boldly  of  my  love  for  you  .  .  and  you 
will  be  glad  and  proud  of  it  .  .  and  be  happy  to  marry  me  and  be 
my  wife!" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  281 

In  the  meantime  Vanna  Andrews  was  daily  seen  driving  down  the 
streets  with  Billy  Conway,  whose  father  was  Governor  of  a  Western 
State  .  .  as  I  saw  her  going  by  in  her  fragile  beauty,  I  bowed  my 
head  to  her^  and  in  return  came  a  slight  nod  of  mere,  passing 
acquaintanceship. 

I  made  friends  with  Billy,  as  I  had  done  with  Vanna's  homely 
room-mate  .  .  who  thought  I  was  becoming  interested  in  her — 
because  I  often  spoke  in  Vanna's  dispraise,  to  throw  her  off  the 
track,  and  to  encourage  her  to  speak  at  greater  length  of  the 
woman  I  loved  and  worshipped  from  a-far. 

Now  I  sought  through  Billy  Conway  a  nearer  opportunity  for  her 
favour.  He  approached  me  one  day  while  we  were  out  on  the  foot- 
ball field,  practicing  formations.  I  was  on  the  scrub  team — ^whose 
duty  it  was  to  help  knock  the  big  team  into  shape. 

"Johnnie,  you  know  Vanna,  don't  you.''  .  .  Vanna  Andrews,  the 
art  student." 

"Slightly,"  I  concealed,  thanking  God  I  hadn't  blushed  straight- 
way at  the  mention  of  her  name.  .  " — met  her  when  I  posed  for 
Professor  Grant's  classes." 

"She's  a  beaut,  ain't  she.^" 

"Everybody  thinks  so." 

"Don't  you?" 

"She'd  be  perfect,  if  she  weren't  so  thin,"  I  answered,  almost 
smothering  from  the  thumping  of  my  heart. 

"I've  often  wondered  what  makes  you  so  cold  toward  the  girls  .  . 
when  you  write  poetry  .  .  poets  are  supposed  to  be  romantic." 

"We  have  a  good  imagination." 

" — wish  you'd  exercise  your  imagination  a  little  for  me  .  .  I'd 
pay  you  for  it." 

"For  what?" 

" — ^writing  poems  on  Vanna,  for  me." 

My  heart  gave  a  wild  jump  of  joy  at  the  opportunity. 

"I'll  think  it  over.    But  if  I  do  so,  I  won't  take  anything  for  it." 

Billy  shook  my  hand  fervently. 

"You're  all  right,  Gregory  .  .  it'll  help  me  a  lot  .  .  I've  got  a 
case  on  her,  I'll  admit." 

"Come  on!"  roared  Coach  Shaughnessy,  "get  on  the  job." 

He  began  calling  letters  and  numbers  for  a  play. 

And  just  for  a  joke,  he  took  "Barrel"  Way,  the  two  hundred 


282  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

pound  fullback,  aside,  and  "Rock-crusher"  Morton  .  .  he  whispered 
them,  I  afterward  learned,  to  give  me  rough  stuff,  go  through  me 
with  a  bang.   .   . 

"Rock-crusher"  took  the  ball,  with  "Barrel"  for  interference  .  . 
they  came  flashing  my  way. 

I  was  so  frenzied  with  joy  over  the  prospect  of  getting  my  poems 
through  to  Vanna,  even  if  it  was  in  another  man's  behalf,  that  I 
flung  myself  forward  and  brought  both  stars  down  with  only  a  yard 
gained. 

Shaughnessy  gave  a  whoop  of  joyous  amazement  and  the  other 
boys  shouted,  and  kidded  "Barrel"  and  "Rock-crusher,"  the  latter 
of  whom  won  his  nickname  from  the  gentle  way  he  had  of  hitting 
his  antagonists  with  his  hard  knees  as  he  ran  into  them,  and 
bowling  them  over  .  .  he  was  a  recruit  from  the  hurdles,  who  ran 
"high." 

Shaughnessy  came  over  to  me. 

"Gregory,  I  want  to  say  right  here,  I  wish  you  took  enough 
studies,  and  you  could  make  sub  on  the  big  team  right  off.  You're 
skinny,  but  you've  got  the  mettle  I  wish  all  my  boys  had." 

No  sooner  was  I  out  of  my  football  clothes  than  I  hurried  to 
Kuhlman's,  drank  three  coco-colas  to  stimulate  me,  and  went  to 
my  room,  to  write  my  first  poem  for  Vanna.  .  . 

Nearly  every  day  Billy  received  a  poem  from  me.  Henceforth, 
when  I  passed  Vanna,  I  received  a  gentle,  appreciative  smile  .  .  but 
I  was  too  timid  even  to  speak  to  her  .  .  and  too  self-conscious  of 
my  clothes,  which  were  worn  and  frayed.  .  . 

There  were  a  few  negro  students  at  Laurel.  One  of  them,  a  girl 
named  Matty  Smith,  approached  me  in  the  library  one  day,  intro- 
duced herself  as  one  of  the  chairmen  of  the  entertainment  com- 
mittee of  the  First  African  Methodist  Church,  and  asked  me  if  I 
would  come  and  give  them  a  talk  the  following  Saturday  night.  .  . 

The  night  came  .  .  I  found  myself  on  the  platform  with  the 
preacher  by  my  side.     They  had  seated  me  in  the  chair  of  honour. 

First  the  congregation  prayed  and  sang  .  .  such  singing,  so  clear 
and  soaring  and  melodious.  It  rocked  the  very  church,  burst  out 
through  the  windows  in  great  surges  of  melody. 

I  was  introduced  as  their  friend,  as  the  coloured  man's  friend. 

I  spoke.     I  read  my  poems  simply  and  unaffectedly. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  283 

Afterward  I  shook  hands  all  round. 

Matty  Smith,  the  negro  girl,  as  black  as  soot,  and  thoroughly 
African,  stood  by  me  as  introducer.  If  I  had  shut  my  eyes,  her 
manner  of  speech  might  not  have  been  told  from  that  of  any  cul- 
tured white  woman's.  She  was  as  refined  and  sensitive  a  human 
being  as  I  have  ever  met. 

As  I  walked  back  to  my  attic  over  the  plumber  shop,  it  was  with 
head  erect  and  heaving  chest.  I  deemed  myself  a  champion  of  the 
negro  race.  I  was  almost  putting  myself  alongside  of  Lincoln  and 
John  Brown. 

Their  reason  for  inviting  me  was  that  I  had  had  a  scathing  poem 
printed,  in  the  New  York  Independent,  on  the  lynching  of  a  negro 
in  Lincoln's  home  State  of  Illinois. 

Within  two  days  of  my  talk  at  the  First  Methodist  African 
Church,  I  met  simultaneously  in  front  of  the  library,  two  women, 
each  going  in  opposite  directions.   .   . 

"Good  afternoon,  Mr.  Gregory  !" 

It  was  Matty  Smith.  She  was  hesitating  for  a  cue  from  me.  She 
wished  to  stop  and  thank  me  again  for  my  speaking. 

But  from  the  other  side  Vanna  Andrews  was  passing. 

I  ignored  Matty  with  a  face  like  a  stone  wall. 

"Good  afternoon!"  I  bowed  to  Vanna  .  .  who  ignored  me  .  .  per- 
haps not  seeing  me. 

The  fearful,  hurt  look  in  the  negro  girl's  eyes  made  me  so  ashamed 
of  myself  that  I  wanted  to  run  away  and  hide  forever  somewhere. 

That  night  I  was  so  covered  with  shame  over  what  I  had  done 
to  another  human  soul,  a  soul  perhaps  as  proud  and  fine  as  any  in 
Laurel,  that  it  was  not  till  dawn  that  sleep  visited  me.   .   . 

So  I  was  just  as  rotten,  just  as  snobbish,  just  as  fearful  of  the 
herd,  as  were  these  other  human  beings  whom  I  made  fun  of  as  the 
bourgeoisie. 

Speaking  with  Riley,  one  of  the  English  professors,  about  the 
mixture  of  colours  on  the  hill.  .  . 

"I  must  confess,"  he  admitted  sincerely,  "that  I  feel  awkward 
indeed  when  a  negro  student  walks  by  my  side  .  .  even  for  a  few 
steps.  .  . 

Coach  Shaughnessy  declared  himself  boldly 


284.  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"I'll  admit  frankly  to  you,  Gregory,  but  don't,  of  course,  repeat 
what  I  say — that  I'll  never  let  a  nigger  play  on  the  football  team  .  . 
when  they  sweat  they  stink  too  badly  .  .  no,  sir,  John  Brown's  State 
or  not,  the  negro  was  never  meant  to  mix  with  the  white  on  terms  of 
equality. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

It  was  mainly  out  of  consideration  for  Langworth,  and  desire  to 
please  him,  that  I  now  joined  the  Unitarian  Church,  of  which  all 
the  old  settlers  of  Laurel  were  members.  This  included  a  testy  old 
gentleman  named  Colonel  Saunders,  who  had  been  one  of  John 
Brown's  company,  had  quarrelled  with  him, — and  who  now,  every 
year,  maintained,  at  the  annual  meeting  of  old  settlers,  that  Brown 
had  been  a  rogue  and  murderer  .  .  a  mad  man,  going  about  cutting 
up  whole  families  with  corn  knives.   .   . 

At  this  juncture  in  his  speech,  which  was  made  undeviatingly  every 
year,  a  sentimental  woman  would  rise  and  cry  out 

"John  Brown,  God  bless  him,  whatever  you  say.  Colonel  Saun- 
ders, his  soul  still  goes  marching  on " 

*'I  grant  that,  madam — that  his  soul  still  goes  marching  on — I 
never  contested  that — but  where  does  it  go  marching  on !" 

Then  the  yearly  riot  of  protests  and  angry  disputation  would 
wake. 

And  every  spring,  in  anticipation  of  this  melee,  reporters  from 
the  Kansas  City  papers  were  sent  to  cover  the  story  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Old  Settlers'  Society. 

Bob  Fitzsimmons  stopped  off  at  our  town,  with  his  show.  Though 
I  couldn't  afford  to  attend  the  performance,  I  did  race  down  to  the 
station,  go  up  to  him,  and  ask  the  privilege  of  a  handshake. 

His  huge,  freckled  ham  of  a  hand  closed  over  mine  in  a  friendly 
manner  .  .  which  disappeared  up  to  the  wrist.  He  exchanged  a  few, 
simple,  shy  words  with  me  from  a  mouth  smashed  to  shapelessness 
by  many  blows.     He  smiled  gently,  with  kind  eyes. 

I  was  prouder  of  this  greeting  than  of  all  my  growing  associa- 
tions with  well-known  literary  figures.  And  I  boasted  to  the  boys  of 
meeting  "Bob"  .  .  inventing  what  I  said  to  "Bob"  and  what  "Bob" 
said  to  me,  ad  infinitum. 

Though  the  great  athlete  shared  my  admiration  with  the  great 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  285 

writer,  yet  my  staying  awake  at  night  writing,  my  but  one  meal  a 
day,  usually, — except  when  I  was  invited  out  to  a  fraternity  house 
or  the  house  of  a  professor — and  my  incessant  drinking  of  coffee 
and  coco-cola  to  keep  my  ideas  whipped  up — all  these  things  inca- 
pacitated me  from  attaining  any  high  place  in  athletic  endeavour. 
I  was  fair  at  boxing  and  could  play  a  good  scrub  game  of  football. 
But  my  running,  on  which  I  prided  myself  most — I  entered  for  the 
two-mile,  one  field  day,  and  won  only  third  place.  I  had  gone  back 
in  form  since  Hebron  days. 

Dr.  Gunning,  head  of  our  physical  instruction,  informed  me  that, 
exercise  as  I  might,  I  could  never  hope  to  be  stronger  or  put  on 
more  weight  .  .  "you  had  too  many  hardships  and  privations  in  your 
growing  years  .  .  and  you  are  of  too  nervous  a  temperament." 

But  my  love  for  Vanna  had  regularised  me  somewhat.  I  dis- 
carded my  sandals  and  bought  Oxford  ties.  And  I  preserved  a 
crease  in  my  trousers  by  laying  them,  folded  carefully,  under  my 
mattress  every  night.  And  I  took  to  wearing  shirts  with  white 
linen  collars.   .   . 

And  I  kept  a  picture  of  the  girl  I  adored,  secretly,  among  my 
manuscripts — it  was  one  I  had  begged  of  "Con"  Cummins,  frankly 
taking  him  into  my  confidence  as  to  my  state  of  heart  toward  Vanna. 
Which  confidence  "Con"  never  abused,  though  it  might  have  afforded 
endless  fields  of  fun. 

"Con"  framed  the  picture  for  me. 

When  alone  with  it,  I  often  actually  knelt  to  it,  as  to  a  holy  image. 
And  I  kissed  and  kissed  it,  till  it  was  quite  faded  away. 

Emma  Silverman,  the  great  anarchist  leader,  came  to  Laurel, 
with  her  manager,  Jack  Leitman.  I  went  to  the  Bellman  House, 
the  town's  swellest  hotel,  to  see  her.  I  had  never  met  her  but  had 
long  admired  her  for  her  activities  and  bravery. 

I  found  her  a  thick-built  woman,  after  the  gladiatorial  fash- 
ion .  .  as  she  moved  she  made  me  think  of  a  battleship  going  into 
action.  There  was  something  about  her  face  .  .  a  squareness  of 
jaw,  a  belligerency,  that  reminded  me  of  Roosevelt,  whom  I  had 
seen  twice  .  .  once,  at  Mt.  Hebron,  when  he  had  made  a  speech  from 
the  chapel  platform  .  .  (when  I  had  determined  not  to  join  in  the 
general  applause  of  one  whom  I  considered  a  mere  demagogue — 


286  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

but,  before  I  knew  it,  found  myself  on  my  feet  roaring  inarticulately 
as  he  strode  in)  and  again,  after  he  had  returned  from  his  African 
expedition,  and  had  come  to  Laurel  to  dedicate  a  fountain  set  up 
for  the  local  horses  and  dogs  by  the  S.  P.  C.  A. 

Jack  Leitman  looked  to  me  like  a  fat  nincompoop.  Such  a  weak- 
ling as  great  women  must  necessarily,  it  seems,  "fall  for."  But  he 
was  an  efficient  manager.  Possessed  of  a  large  voice  and  an  insistent 
manner,  he  sold  books  by  the  dozen  before  and  after  Emma  Silver- 
man's lectures.  .  . 

Miss  Silverman  already  knew  of  me  through  Summershire,  the 
wealthy  socialist  editor  and  owner  of  Summershire' s  Magazine,  and 
Penton  Baxter.  It  thrilled  me  when  she  called  me  by  my  first 
name.  .  . 

Her  first  lecture  was  on  Sex.  The  hall  was  jammed  to  the 
doors  by  a  curiosity-moved  crowd. 

She  began  by  assuming  that  she  was  not  talking  to  idiots  and 
cretins,  but  to  men  and  women  of  mature  minds — so  she  could  speak 
as  she  thought  in  a  forthright  manner.  She  inveighed  against  the 
double  standard.  When  someone  in  the  auditorium  asked  what 
she  meant  by  the  single  standard  she  replied,  she  meant  sexual 
expression  and  experience  for  man  and  woman  on  an  equal  foot- 
ing .  .  the  normal  living  of  life  without  which  no  human  being  could 
be  really  decent — and  that  regardless  of  marriage  and  the  con- 
ventions ! 

"The  situation  as  it  is,  is  odious  .  .  all  men,  with  but  few  excep- 
tions, have  sexual  life  before  marriage,  but  they  insist  that  their 
wives  come  to  them  in  that  state  of  absurd  ignorance  of  their  own 
bodily  functions  and  consequent  lack  of  exercise  of  them,  which 
they  denominate  'purity.'  .   . 

"I  doubt  if  there  is  a  solitary  man  in  this  audience — a  married  man 
— who  has  not  had  premarital  intercourse  with  women." 

All  the  while  I  kept  my  eye  on  Professor  Wilton,  who  sat  near 
me,  in  the  row  ahead  .  .  he  was  flushing  furiously  in  angry,  puri- 
tanic dissent  .  .  and  I  knew  him  well  enough  to  foresee  a  forthcoming 
outburst  of  protest. 

"Yes,  I  think  I  can  safely  say  that  there  is  not  one  married  man 
here  who  can  honestly  claim  that  he  came  to  his  wife  with  that  same 
physical  *purity'  which  he  required  of  her." 

Wilton  leaped  to  his  feet  in  a  fury  .  .  the  good,  simple  soul.     He 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  287 

was  so  indignant  that  the  few  white  hairs  on  his  head  worked  up 
sizzling  with  his  emotion.  .  . 

"Here^s  one!"  he  shouted,  forgetting  in  his  earnest  anger  the 
assembled  audience,  most  of  whom  knew  him. 

There  followed  such  an  uproar  of  merriment  as  I  have  never  seen 
the  like  before  nor  since.  The  students,  of  course,  howled  with  inde- 
scribable joy  .  .  Emma  Silverman  choked  with  laughter.  Jack 
Leitman  rolled  over  the  side  table  on  which  he  had  set  the  books  to 
sell  as  the  crowd  passed  out 

After  the  deafening  cries,  cat-calls  and  uproars,  Emma  grew 
serious. 

"I  don't  know  who  you  are,"  she  cried  to  Professor  Wilton,  "but 
I'll  take  chances  in  telling  you  that  you're  a  liar !" 

Again  Wilton  was  on  his  feet  in  angry  protest. 

"Shame  on  you,  woman !  have  you  no  shame !"  he  shouted. 
.  This  sally  brought  the  house  down  utterly.    The  boys  hooted  and 
cat-called  and  stamped  again.  .  . 

Emma  Silverman  laughed  till  the  tears  streamed  down  her  face.  .  . 

During  the  four  days  she  remained  in  Laurel  her  lectures  were 
crowded. 

•  •••••• 

Walking  up  the  hill  one  day,  I  overtook  Professor  Wilton,  under 
whom  I  had  studied  botany,  and  whom  I  liked,  knowing  he  was  sincere 
and  had  spoken  the  incredible  though  absolute  truth. 

"That  woman,   that   anarchist   friend   of  yours,  Gregory,  is   a 


coarse  woman 


I" 


I  rose  to  Emma's  defence  .  .  but  he  kept  repeating  .  .  "no,  no  .  . 
she  is  nothing  but  a  coarse,  depraved  woman." 

At  my  instigation,  the  Sig-Kaps  gave  an  afternoon  tea  for  her. 
And  I  was  proud  to  act  as  her  introducer.  The  boys  liked  her. 
She  was  like  a  good  gale  of  wind  to  the  minds  and  souls  of  us. 

I  saw  Emma  and  Jack  off  at  the  train.  I  carried  two  of  hei 
grips  for  her. 

"Take  Johnnie  with  you!"  jovially  shouted  some  of  the  boys — a 
motor  car  full  of  them — Phi  Alphs — as  we  stepped  to  the  station 
platform.  .  . 


288  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

She  answered  them  with  a  jolly  laugh,  a  wave  of  the  hand.  .  . 

"No,  I'll  leave  him  here  .  .  you  need  a  few  like  him  with  you !" 
•  •••••• 

"I  have  something  on  my  conscience,"  remarked  Miss  Silverman 
to  me,  "Johnnie,  do  you  really  think  that  old  professor  was  speaking 
the  truth?" 

"I'm  sure  of  it.  Miss  Silverman." 

"Why,  then,  I'm  heartily  sorry  .  .  and  it  was  rough  of  me  .  . 
and  will  you  tell  the  professor  for  me  that  I  sincerely  apologise  for 
having  hurt  his  feelings  .  .  tell  him  I  have  so  many  jackasses  attend- 
ing my  lectures  all  over  the  country,  who  rise  and  say  foolish  and 
insincere  things,  just  to  stand  in  well  with  the  communities  they 
live  in — that  sometimes  it  angers  me,  their  hypocrisy — and  then  I 
blaze  forth  pretty  strong  and  lay  them  flat !" 

Professor  Wilton  was  a  Phi  Alph.  From  that  time  he  was  spoken 
of  as  "the  only  Phi  Alph  Virgin." 

The  periods  when  I  had  rested  secure  in  the  knowledge  of  where 
my  next  meal  was  coming  from,  had  been  few.  Life  had  pressed  me 
close  to  its  ragged  edge  ever  since  I  could  remember. 

Now  I  was  accorded  a  temporary  relief.  Penton  Baxter  wrote 
me  that  he  had  procured  me  a  patron  .  .  Henry  Belton,  the  million- 
aire Single-Taxer,  had  consented  to  endow  me  at  fifteen  dollars  a 
week,  for  six  months.  I  had  informed  Baxter,  in  one  of  my  many 
letters  to  him — for  we  had  developed  an  intimate  correspondence — 
that  I  had  a  unique  fairy  drama  in  mind,  but  could  not  write  it 
because  of  the  harassment  of  my  struggle  for  bread  and  life.  .  .  I 
had  laid  aside  for  the  present  my  projected  "Judas." 

Singing  all  the  time,  I  packed  my  books  in  a  large  box  which  the 
corner  grocer  gave  me,  and,  giving  up  my  noisy  room  over  the  tin- 
shop,  I  was  off  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  where  I  engaged  a  room,  telling 
the  secretary,  who  knew  me  well,  of  my  good  luck,  and  enjoining 
him  not  to  tell  anyone  else  .  .  which  I  promptly  did  myself.  .  . 

I  selected  one  of  the  best  rooms,  a  corner  one,  with  three  win- 
dows through  which  floods  of  light  streamed.  It  was  well-furnished. 
The  bed  was  the  finest  I  had  ever  had  to  sleep  in. 

Immediately  I  went  to  Locker's,  the  smart  students'  clothier,  and 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  289 

put  on  a  ready-made  suit  of  clothes,  of  blue  serge.  And  I  charged 
new  shirts  and  little  white  collars  .  .  and  several  flowing  ties.  And  a 
fine,  new  pair  of  shoes. 

"You  sure  look  nifty,"  commented  Locker,  who  himself  waited 
on  me. 

Then  I  went  to  a  bookstore  and  plunged  recklessly,  purchasing 
Gosse  and  Garnett's  Illustrated  History  of  English  Literature^  in 
four  volumes,  an  expensive  set. 

I  charged  everything  on  the  strength  of  my  endowment,  and,  of 
course,  in  order  to  gain  the  credit  I  sought,  I  showed  Baxter's 
letter,  and  pledged  each  storekeeper  not  to  spread  the  story.  .  . 

Before  nightfall  practically  the  whole  student  body  knew  of  my 
good  luck.  And  Jack  Travers  had  found  me,  lying  back,  luxuri- 
ously clad  in  my  newly  acquired,  big  blue  bathrobe,  in  my  morris 
chair.  .  . 

He  looked  me  over  with  keen  amusement. 

Somehow,  for  several  years,  my  one  dream  of  luxury  and  afflu- 
ence had  been  to  own  a  flowered  bathrobe  to  lounge  in,  and  to  wear 
on  the  athletic  field.  I  had  hitherto  had  to  be  content  with  a  shabby 
overcoat. 

On  my  new  sectional  bookcase  stood  a  statue  of  the  Flying  Mer- 
cury, that  my  eye  might  continually  drink  in  my  ideal  of  physical 
perfection.  Opposite  that,  stood  my  plaster  cast  of  Apollo  Belve- 
dere, as  indicative  of  the  god  of  song  that  reigned  over  my  thoughts 
and  life. 


"Jack,  I  want  you  to  come  and  have  supper  with  me !" 

"Johnnie,  you  are  just  like  a  big  baby  .  .  all  right,  I'll  dine  with 
you,  after  I've  shot  in  the  story  about  your  endowment  to  the  Star." 

"Hurry  up,  then, — it's  after  five  now.  I've  never  had  enough 
money  before,  to  treat  you  .  .  it's  you  that  have  always  treated  me." 

"Where'U  we  dine?" 

"At  the  swellest  place  in  town,  the  Bellman  House  .  .  Walsh  will 
charge  me."    Walsh  Summers  was  the  proprietor. 

Big,  fat  Walsh  welcomed  me  and  Travers. 

"No,  Johnnie,  I  won't  charge  you.  Instead,  you  and  Jack  are 
dining  as  guests  of  the  house." 


290  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

And  he  would  have  it  no  other  way. 

••••••• 

Ally  Merton  was  right  about  appearances.  To  have  your  shirts 
laundered  regularly  makes  a  man  a  different  being.  People  that 
only  noticed  me  before  with  a  sort  of  surreptitious  mockery  now 
began  to  treat  me  with  surprised  respect.  Professors  invited  me 
even  more — the  more  conservative  of  them — to  dine  at  their  homes. 

And  it  was  delightful  to  have  living  quarters  where  there  was 
both  hot  and  cold  running  water.  I  took  a  cold  bath,  every  morn- 
ing, after  my  exercise,  and  a  hot  bath,  every  night,  before  going 
to  bed. 

The  place  was  well-heated,  too.  I  no  longer  had  to  sit  up  in 
bed,  the  covers  drawn  to  my  chin  to  keep  from  freezing,  while  I 
read,  studied,  wrote.  Nor  did  I  need  sit  on  my  hands,  in  alternation, 
to  keep  one  warm  while  I  rhymed  with  the  other,  during  those  curious 
spells  of  inspiration,  those  times  of  ecstasy — occurring  mostly  in 
the  night — ^when  I  would  write  and  write  so  rapidly  that  morning 
would  find  me  often  not  able  to  decipher  the  greater  part  of  what 
I  had  written  .  .  five  or  ten  poems  in  a  night .  .  scrawled  madly  almost 
like  automatic  writing.  .  . 

•  •••*•• 

William  Jennings  Bryan  came  to  talk  to  us  at  our  school  audi- 
torium. His  lecture.  The  Prince  of  Peace,  soon  degenerated  into 
an  old-fashioned  attack  on  science  and  the  evolutionary  theory. 

The  professors  sat  bored  and  mute  on  the  platform  beside  him, 
while  he  evacuated  the  forty-year-old  wheeze  of  "your  great-great- 
great-grandfather  might  have  been  a  monkey,  but,  thank  God,  mine 
was  not !"  he  won  the  usual  great  response  of  handclapping  and 
laughter  with  this.   .   . 

And  then  he  held  out  a  glass  of  water,  to  prove  that  miracles 
might  happen,  because  God,  being  omnipotent,  could,  at  will,  sus- 
pend natural  laws. 

"Look  at  this  glass  of  water.  I  hold  it  out  at  arm's  length,  so. 
If  I  did  not  hold  it,  it  would  drop  to  the  floor  and  shatter  into 
pieces.  Thus  I,  by  a  human  act,  suspend  the  law  of  gravitation  .  . 
so  God ! — "  There  was  huzzaing  and  applause.  Several  professors 
uneasily  shifted  the  crossing  of  their  knees  .  .  one  or  two  stared 
diplomatically  at  the  ceiling. 

I  grew  angry  and  sent  forth  several  sharp  hisses  before  I  knew 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  291 

what  I  was  doing  .  .  the  effect  was  an  electric  stillness  for  the 
moment.  Then  a  roar  of  indignant  applause  drowned  my  protest. 
And  I  stopped  and  remained  quiet,  with  much  craning  of  necks 
about  me,  to  look  at  me. 

As  the  crowd  poured  out,  I  ran  out  into  the  road,. from  group 
to  group,  and,  wherever  I  found  a  professor  walking  along,  I  vocif- 
erated my  protest  at  our  allowing  such  a  back-water  performance 
at  the  State's  supposed  centre  of  intelligence. 

"But,  Gregory,  it  makes  no  difference  .  .  the  argument  is  settled, 
let  platform  orators  like  Bryan  tilt  at  windmills  all  they  may." 

"The  hell  it  doesn't  make  a  difference !  if  you  professors  are  worth 
your  salt,  you  won't  let  a  Chautauqua  man  get  by  with  such  bunco." 

The  writing  of  my  fairy  drama  progressed  amain. 

I  mailed  a  copy  of  it  to  Penton  Baxter,  who  said  that  it  had 
genuine  merit.     Was  not  great,  but  showed  great  promise. 

Henry  Belton,  from  London,  wrote  me  that  it  was  beautiful  and 
fine,  but  too  eccentric  for  production  in  even  the  eccentric  theatre. 

And  Belton  kept  deluging  me  with  Single  Tax  pamphlets.  And  I 
wrote  him  hot  letters  in  reply,  villifying  the  Single  Tax  theory  and 
upholding  revolutionary  Socialism.  And  he  grew  angry  with  me, 
and  informed  me  that  he  had  meditated  keeping  me  in  his  patronage 
longer,  but  I  was  so  obdurate  that  he  would  end  my  remittance 
with  the  six  months  .  .  as,  in  fact,  was  all  that  was  originally 
promised  me. 

I  replied  that  it  made  no  difference  .  .  that  I  would  be  always 
grateful  to  him.  His  letters  stopped.  The  money  stopped.  But 
I  went  on  living  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  charging  up  rent  .  .  said  that 
I  was  nearing  the  end  of  my  rope  again,  glad  because  I  had  shown 
to  myself  that  I  was  capable  of  sustained  creative  effort. 

Many  well-known  men  came  to  Laurel  for  lectures  to  the  students. 

Lyman  Abbott  appeared. 

"The  ancient  bell-wether  of  the  Standard  Oil,"  Travers  irrev- 
erently dubbed  him. 

The  College  Y.  M.  C.  A.  accorded  him  a  reception.  I  was  one 
of  those  invited  to  meet  him. 

After  he  had  delivered  a  brief  talk  on  God  and  The  Soul,  ques- 
tions were  invited — meant  only  to  be  politely  put,  that  the  speaker 


292  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

might  shine.  But  my  question  was  not  put  for  the  sake  of  social 
amenity  .  .  though  I'll  admit,  just  a  little  for  the  sake  of  show- 
ing off. 

"Dr.  Abbott,"  I  asked,  "it  is  quite  possible  that  there  are  other 
worlds  in  the  sky — that,  also,  the  rest  of  the  planets  either  are  or  will 
be,  homes  for  souls,  for  living  beings  equal  to  or  higher  than  our 
present  human  grade  of  development.'^" 
"Yes,  yes,  that  is  quite  probable." 

"Well,  then,  God,  to  prove  a  just  God,  would  have  to  send  his  Son 
to  be  crucified  a  million  times — once  for  each  world  .  .  for,  if  He  did 
not,  then  the  souls  on  these  worlds  would  either  be  damned  without  a 
chance  for  salvation,  or,  if  God  made  an  exception  in  their  case,  that 
would  be  an  unfair  deal — for  us  to  suffer  from  a  fault  other  worlds 
are  free  of." 

Dr.  Abbott  hemmed  and  hawed. 

*'It  is  not  yet  proven  that  there  are  other  inhabited  worlds.  I 
am«only  dealing  with  questions  of  practical  theology,"  he  answered, 
with  some  heat  and  an  attempt  to  be  sarcastic. 

The  members  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  were  indignant  at  me  for  putting 
a  maladroit  question. 

"It  doesn't  do  to  invite  Gregory  anywhere.  You  can't  tell  what 
stuff  he  might  pull." 

"A  legitimate  question — "  egged  on  Travers  at  my  side,  "bump 
the  old  boy  again,  Johnnie." 

But  I  was  not  given  another  chance.  After  a  short  but  painful 
silence  the  Secretary  rose  and  put  a  suave  and  stereotyped  query  .  . 
and  others  filled  the  breach  in  rapid  succession.  And  the  prestige 
of  the  great  theologian  was  salvaged. 

Commencement  day  approached.  There  came  to  deliver  the 
address  for  the  daj^  George  Harvey,  then  editor  of  Harper^s  Weekly. 
Travers  was  assigned  to  interview  Harvey.   .  . 

"The  fellow's  a  pompous  big  stiff,"  complained  Jack,  "the  kind 
that  makes  a  fetish  of  morning  and  evening  dress  .  .  wears  kid 
gloves  .  .  and  a  top  hat  .  .  he  has  both  valet  and  secretary  with 
him." 

*'That's  no  disgrace.  Don't  you  think.  Jack,  that  we  Middle- 
Westerners  only  make  fun  of  such  people  and  their  habits  for  the 
reason  that  we're  either  unable  to  do  the  same,  or  do  not  dare  do 
it  because  of  our  jealousy  of  each  other — our  so-called  hick  demo- 
cratic spirit.'"' 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  293 

"There's  a  lot  of  truth  in  that.  But  fundamentally  I  would  say 
that  the  newspaper  editors  who  are  here  this  week,  holding  a  con- 
ference and  tendering  Harvey  a  banquet,  mean  their  plainness  of 
dress  and  life  .  .  and  do  not  hanker  after  the  clubman's  way  of  life 
as  Harvey  represents  it  to  their  eyes  .  .  you  just  watch  for  what 
Ed.  Lowe  and  Billy  Dorgan  do  to  our  Eastern  chap  at  the  ban- 
quet .  .  they'll  kid  him  till  he's  sick." 

That  banquet  will  live  in  the  memory  of  Kansas  newspapermen. 

Harvey,  when  he  entered  the  hall  where  the  journalists  were 
already  seated,  first  snapped  his  top  hat  sidewise  to  his  attending 
valet.     Then  he  sat  down  grandly. 

Billy  Dorgan  and  Ed.  Lowe  **rode  Harvey  around,"  as  Jack 
phrased  it.  The  distinguished  editor,  with  his  solemnity,  invited 
thrusts.  Besides,  most  of  those  present  were  what  was  denominated 
as  "progressive"  .  .  Jarvis  Alexander  Mackworth  was  there  .  .  and 
Alden  .  .  and  Tobbs,  afterward  governor. 

•  •••••• 

The  next  day  Travers  printed  a  supposititious  interview  with  Har- 
vey's English  valet  on  how  it  felt  to  be  a  valet  of  a  great  man. 
Both  the  valet  and  Harvey  waxed  furious,  it  was  said. 

Arthur  Brisbane  visited  us.  He  ran  down  from  Kansas  City 
over  night.  This  man  was  Jack  Travers'  God  .  .  and  we  of  the  Press 
or  Scoop  Club — a  student  newspaper  club  of  which  I  had  recently 
been  made  a  member — also  looked  up  to  him  as  a  sort  of  deity. 

Travers  informed  me  reverentially  that  Brisbane  was  so  busy  he 
always  carried  his  stenographer  with  him,  even  when  he  rode  to  the 
Hill  in  an  auto  .  .  dictating  an  editorial  as  he  drove  along. 

"A  great  man  .  .  a  very  great  man." 

I  won  merit  with  Travers  by  reciting  an  Incident  of  my  factory 
life.  Every  afternoon  the  men  in  my  father's  department  would 
bring  in  Brisbane's  latest  editorial  to  me  .  .  and  listen  to  me  as  I 
read  it  aloud.  To  have  the  common  man  buy  a  newspaper  for  its 
editorials — that  was  a  triumph. 

And  Brisbane's  editorials  frequently  touched  on  matters  that  the 
mob  are  supposed  not  to  be  interested  in  .  .  stories  of  the  lives  of 
poets,  philosophers,  statesmen.  .  . 

One  of  the  men  who  could  barely  read  .  .  who  ran  his  fingers 
along  the  lines  as  he  read,  asked  me 


294.  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Who  was  this  guy  SO-krats?" 

It  was  an  editorial  on  Socrates  and  his  life  and  death  that  brought 
forth  the  enquiry  .  .  after  I  had  imparted  to  him  what  information 
I  possessed: 

"Where  can  I  find  more  about  him,  and  about  that  pal  of  his, 
Plato?" 

I  was  hanging  on  to  my  comfortable  room  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  by 
bluff.  I  had  not  let  on  to  the  secretary  that  my  Belton  subsidy  had 
stopped.  Instead,  I  affected  to  be  concerned  about  its  delay.  But 
I  did  this,  not  to  be  dishonest,  but  to  gain  time  .  .  I  was  attempting 
to  write  tramp  stories,  after  the  manner  of  London,  and  expected 
to  have  one  of  them  accepted  soon,  though  none  ever  were.   .   . 

Declcer,  the  student-proprietor  of  the  restaurant  where  I  ate 
every  day,  was  more  astute. 

"Now  look  here,  Gregory,  you  just  can't  run  your  bill  up  any 
higher." 

I  already  owed  him  fifteen  dollars. 

I  compounded  with  him  by  handing  him  over  my  Illustrated  His- 
tory of  English  Literature.  It  was  like  tearing  flesh  from  my  side 
to  part  with  these  volumes. 

And  now  I  had  no  more  credit  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

And  I  went  back  to  Frank  Randall,  to  apply  again  for  my  old 
room  over  his  shop.  He  was  using  it  now  to  store  old  stoves  in. 
But  he  moved  them  out. 

With  a  sense  of  despair,  compensated  by  a  feeling  of  sacrifice  for 
my  poetry,  I  found  myself  once  more  back  over  the  tinshop,  the 
hammers  sounding  and  crashing  below. 

Old  Blore,  the  cancer  doctor,  lived  in  a  room  in  the  front.  All 
day  long  he  sat  drinking  rum  and  sugar  .  .  and  shipping  out  his 
cancer  cure,  a  white  mixture  like  powdered  sugar.  Whether  it  did 
any  good  or  not,  he  believed  in  it  himself.  .  . 

I  have  not  written  about  him  before  .  .  there  are  so  many  odd 
characters  that  I  came  in  contact  with  that  I  have  not  written 
about  .  .  for  this  book  is  about  myself.  .  . 

But  old  Blore  .  .  he  came  waddling  back  to  me,  drunk,  as  usual, 
on  his  rum  and  sugar. 

"Welcome  back,  Johnnie  .  .  come  on,  you  and  Frank,  into  my 
room  .  .  we've  got  to  celebrate  your  return." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  295 

Frank  and  I  set  down  the  stove  we  were  moving,  dusted  our  hands 
off,  and  followed. 

"But  I  won't  drink  any  of  your  rum,  Ed!  It's  got  too  much  of 
a  kick." 

" — nonsense  .  .  good  Jamaica  rum  never  hurt  nobody." 

We  drank  several  rounds  of  rum  and  water,  with  sugar.  And 
we  jocosely  joined  together  in  singing  the  cancer  doctor's  favourite 
hymn — "We're  drifting  down  the  stream  of  time,  we  haven't  got 
long  to  stay." 

Then  Frank  and  Ed.  retailed  to  me  the  practical  jokes  they  had 
played  on  each  other  since  I  had  been  gone  from  among  them  .  . 
on  big  Sam,  the  chocolate-coloured  shoemaker  who  had  his  shop  next 
door  .  .  and  an  obscene  one  on  a  half-wit  named  Elmer,  who  was  one 
of  Frank's  helpers  .  .  that,  though  it  was  pretty  raw,  made  me  choke 
and  gasp  with  merriment  .  .  and  they  told  me  how,  one  night,  they 
had  wired  the  iron  roof  in  the  back,  so  that  about  ten  cats  that 
were  mewling  and  quarrelling  there,  received  a  severe  electric  shock 
,   .  how  funny  and  surprised  they'd  acted. 

Most  serviceably  a  check  from  the  National  Magazine  came,  for 
twenty-five  dollars  .  .  I  had  sold  them  a  prophetic  poem  on  airships. 
The  check  ameliorated  my  condition.  I  saw  my  way  clear  to  a  few 
weeks   more   of   regular   eating. 

Then,  on  top  of  that,  one  day  a  telegram  came.  .  , 

"Am  on  my  way  West.     Will  stop  off  visit  you  at  Laurel — 
Penton." 

•  •••••  • 

Travers  rushed  the  story  to  the  Kansas  City  Star, 

"KANSAS  POET  HONOURED 


AUTHOR  OF  'SLAUGHTER  HOUSE'  TO  VISIT  HIM" 

I  waited  in  a  fever  of  eagerness  and  impatience  for  the  arrival  of 
this  man  whom  I  idealised  and  looked  on  as  a  great  man  .  .  the  man 
who  had  written  the  Les  Miserables  of  the  American  workingman. 


296  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Harry  Varden,  editor  of  the  Cry  for  Right,  had  been  to  Laurel  a 
week  previously,  to  address  a  socialist  local,  and  I  had  looked  him 
up,  at  the  house  of  the  "comrade"  where  he  was  passing  the  night. 
The  comrade  sent  me  up  to  Varden's  room,  where  I  found  the 
latter  just  getting  out  of  bed.  I  shall  always  think  of  him  in  his 
proletarian  grey  woollen  underdrawers  and  undershirt.  In  which  he 
had  evidently  slept.  He  had  the  bed-habits  of  the  masses.  And 
the  room  was  stale  with  bad  air ;  like  the  masses,  he,  too,  slept  with 
windows  shut. 

Varden's  monthly  magazine  The  World  to  Be,  had  occasionally 
printed  a  poem  of  mine  .  .  and  I  was  paid  five  dollars  for  each 
poem. 

Varden  was  a  frail,  jolly  little  chap,  absolutely  fearless  and  alert 
and  possessed  of  a  keen  sense  of  humour  which  he  could  turn,  on 
occasion,  even  against  himself. 

I  breakfasted  with  him.  He  had  good  table  manners,  but,  from 
time  to  time,  he  forgot  himself  and  smacked  his  lips  keenly.  And 
the  Qgg  dripped  on  his  chin  as  he  flashed  a  humorous  incident  that 
had  happened  to  him  on  one  of  his  lecture  trips.  .  . 

After  breakfast  he  and  I  took  a  long  walk  together  .  .  we  began 
speaking  of  Penton  Baxter  .  .  I  spoke  in  high  praise  of  the  great 
novelist  .  .  reverently  and  with  awe. 

"Yes,  yes,"  Varden  assented,  "Penton  is  all  you  say,  but  he  has 
no  sense  of  humour  .  .  and  he  takes  himself  and  his  work  as  seriously 
as  if  the  destiny  of  the  human  race  depended  on  it  .  .  which  is  getting 
in  a  bad  way,  for  a  reformer,  you  know — gives  a  chap's  enemies 
and  antagonists  so  many  good  openings.  .  . 

"When  Penton  was  writing  The  Slaughter  House  and  we  were 
running  it  serially,  his  protagonist,  Jarl — it  seemed  he  didn't  know 
how  to  dispose  of  him  .  .  and  the  book  was  running  on  and  on  inter- 
minably. .  .  I  wired  him  'for  God's  sake  kill  Jarl.'  .   . 

"Baxter  took  my  telegram  much  to  heart  .  .  was  deeply  aggrieved 
I  afterward  learned  .  .  the  dear  boy  .  .  he  did  'kill  Jarl'  finally  .  . 
and  absent-mindedly  brought  him  to  life  again,  later  on  in  his  book." 

And  Harry  Varden  laughed  excitedly  like  a  boy,  and  he  leaned 
sideways  and  smote  his  half-bent,  sharp,  skinny  knee  with  his  left 
hand.  I  could  perceive  that  that  was  a  grotesque  platform  gesture 
of  his,  when  he  drove  a  comic  point  home. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  297 

I  was  waiting  at  the  station  .  .  where  I  had  shaken  hands  with 
Bob  Fitzsimmons,  and  had  seen  Emma  Silverman  off.  .  . 

Penton  Baxter  was  due  on  the  eleven  o'clock  train  from  Kansas 
City. 

I  surely  must  be  on  the  road  to  becoming  somebody,  with  all  these 
famous  people  taking  such  an  interest  in  me.  I  remembered  Emer- 
son's dictum  about  waiting  in  one's  own  doorway  long  enough,  and 
all  the  world  would  come  by. 

Was  I  to  be  disappointed.^  It  did  not  seem  credible  that  the 
great  man  would  make  a  special  stop-off  on  his  way  to  the  coast, 
just  to  pay  me  a  visit. 

One  after  another  the  passengers  stepped  down  and  walked  and 
rode  away.  Then  a  little,  boyish-looking  man  .  .  smooth-faced, 
bright-complexioned,  jumped  down,  wavered  toward  me,  dropping 
his  baggage  .  .  extended  his  hand  .  .  both  hands  .  .  smiling  with  his 
eyes,  that  possessed  long  lashes  like  a  girl's. 

"Are  you  Johnnie  Gregory?" 

"Penton  Baxter?"  I  asked  reverently.  He  smiled  in  response 
and  drew  my  arm  through  his. 

"This  is  great,  this  is  certainly  great,"  he  remarked,  in  a  high 
voice,  "and  I'm  more  than  glad  that  I  stopped  off  to  see  you." 

He  expanded  in  the  sun  of  my  youthful  hero-worship. 

"Where's  the  best  hotel  in  town?" 

"The  Bellman  House  .  .  but  I've  arranged  with  the  Sig-Kappas 
to  put  you  up." 

"Are  you  a  fraternity  man?" 

"No— a  barb." 

"I'd  rather  go  to  the  hotel  you  named  .  .  but  thank  the  boys 
for  me." 

I  contended  with  Penton  Baxter  for  the  privilege  of  carrying  his 
two  grips.  They  were  so  heavy  that  they  dragged  my  shoulders 
down,  but,  with  an  effort,  I  threw  my  chest  out,  and  walked,  straight 
and  proud,  beside  him. 

As  we  walked  he  questioned  and  questioned.  He  had  the  history 
of  Laurel  University,  the  story  of  my  life,  out  of  me,  almost,  by  the 
time  we  had  covered  the  ten  blocks  to  the  hotel. 

"Penton  Baxter!"  I  whispered  in  a  low  voice  to  the  proprietor, 


298  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

tv'ho,  as  he  stood  behind  the  desk,  dipped  the  pen  with  a  flourish, 
and  shoved  the  open  register  toward  his  distinguished  guest. 


Travers,  of  course,  was  the  first  to  see  the  great  novelist.  He 
wired  an  interview  to  the  Star,  and  wrote  a  story  for  the  Laurel 
Globe  and  the  Laurelian. 

Baxter  said  he  would  stay  over  for  two  days  .  .  that  he  didn't 
want  to  do  much  beside  seeing  me  .  .  that  he  would  place  himself 
entirely  in  my  hands.     I  was  beside  myself  with  happy  pride. 

"This  is  a  glorious  country.  You  must  take  me  for  a  long  walk 
this  afternoon.  I  want  to  tramp  away  out  to  that  purple  bluff 
toward  the  South  East." 

"We  call  it  Azure  Mound." 

"Has  it  any  historical  interest  .f*" 

" — don't  know  !  It  might  have.  Richard  Realf,  the  poet,  camped 
out  about  here,  on  the  heights  with  his  men,  during  the  Quantrell 
Raid.  And  there  are  one  or  two  old  settlers  in  Laurel  who  were 
members  of  John  Brown's  company." 

Baxter  was  a  good  walker.  He  made  me  think  of  Shelley  as  he 
traipsed  along,  indefatigably  talking  away,  his  voice  high-pitched 
and  shrill  .   .  unburdening  his  mind  of  all  his  store  of  ideas.   .   . 

His  head  was  much  too  large  for  his  body  .  .  a  strong  head  .  . 
strong  Roman  nose  .  .  decisive  chin,  but  with  too  deep  a  cleft  in  it. 
His  mouth  was  loose  and  cruel — like  mine.  His  face  was  as  smooth 
as  a  boy's  or  woman's  .  .  on  each  cheek  a  patch  here  and  there  of 
hair,  like  the  hair  on  an  old  maid's  face. 

More  than  a  year  later  his  wife  confided  to  me  that  "Pennie," 
as  she  dubbed  him  affectionately,  could  not  grow  a  beard  .  .  and 
she  laughed  at  his  solemnly  shaving  once  a  week,  as  a  matter  of 
ritual,  anyhow.  .  . 

Each  of  us  went  with  bent  knees  as  we  walked,  as  if  wading  against 
a  rising  tide  of  invisible  opposition. 

I  discoursed  of  a  new  religion — a  non-ascetic  one  based  on  the 
individual's  spiritual  duty  to  enjoy  life — that  I  meditated  inaugurat- 
ing as  soon  as  I  left  college.  He  advised  me  to  wait  till  I  was 
at  least  Christ's  age  when  he  began  his  public  ministry,  thirty- 
five  or  six.     His  face  lit  with  frolic.  .  . 

Then,  in  rapid  transition,  he  soberly  discoursed  on  the  religion 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  299 

he  himself  had  In  mind  .  .  Instinctively  I  knew  It  would  not  do  to 

make  sport  of  his  dreams,  as  he  had  of  mine. 

Harry  Varden  was  right.     Where  he  himself  was  involved  in  the 

slightest,  Baxter  absolutely  had  no  sense  of  humour. 

Baxter  told  me  of  the  great  men  he  had  met  on  intimate 
terms,  in  the  wider  world  of  life  and  letters  I  had  not  yet  attained 
to  .  .  of  Roosevelt,  who  invited  him  to  dinner  at  the  White 
House  .  .  and  of  how,  at  that  dinner  attended  by  many  prominent 
men  .  .  by  several  Senators  .  .  Roosevelt  had  unlimbered  his  guns 
of  attack  on  many  men  In  public  office.  .  .  "Senator  So-and-so 
was  the  biggest  crook  In  American  public  life.  .  .  Senator  Thing- 
gumbob  was  the  most  sinister  force  American  politics  had  ever 
seen  .  .  belonged  to  the  Steel  Trust  from  his  shoes  to  his 
hat.  .  ." 

"Suppose,  Mr.  President,"  Baxter  had  put  to  him,  at  the  same 
time  expressing  his  amazement  at  the  president's  open  manner  of 
speech  before  men  he  had  never  even  met  before  .  .  men  perhaps  of 
antagonistic  shades  of  opinion,  "suppose  I  should  go  out  from  here 
and  give  to  the  newspapers  the  things  you  have  just  said !  How 
would  you  protect,  defend  yourself?" 

"Young  man,  if  you  did — as  you  won't — "  smashed  Roosevelt,  with 
his  characteristic  of  clenched  right  fist  brought  down  in  the  open 
palm  of  the  left  hand — "if  you  did — I'd  simply  brand  you  as  a 
liar  .  .  and  shame  you  before  the  world." 

"And  so  it  was  that  Roosevelt  expressed  himself  freely  .  .  and 
at  the  same  time  protected  himself." 


We  stood  on  the  top  of  Azure  Mound.  Baxter  was  puffing 
heavily,  for  it  had  been  a  hard  climb. 

At  our  feet  extended  a  panorama  of  what  seemed  like  a  whole 
State. 

The  wide-spread  fields  of  wheat,  of  corn,  exalted  us. 

"God,  what  a  glorious  country !  .  .  no  wonder  Walt  loved  America 
.  .  In  spite  of  the  abuses  capital  has  perpetrated  in  it." 

"Walt  Mason?"  I  enquired,  mischievously.   .   . 

"No,"  he  responded,  seriously,  "Walt  Whitman." 

"But  our  poet  laureate  to-day  is  Walt  Mason  .  .  and  our  State 
philosopher,  the  sage  of  Potato  Hill,  Ed  Howe,  is  an  honest-to- 


SCO  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

God  stand-patter  .  .  that's  Kansas  to-day  for  you,  in  spite  of  her 
wide,  scenic  vistas.   .   . 

"Nevertheless,"  I  went  on,  "Kansas  does  develop  marvellous  peo- 
ple .  .  we  have  Carrie  Nation " 

*'And  Johnnie  Gregory !"  put  in  Baxter. 

"I  don't  want  just  to  belong  to  Kansas." 

It  was  I  who  was  humourless  now,  "I'm  sick  of  its  corn-fed 
bourgeois  ideals  .   .  I  want  to  belong  to  the  world — as — you  do !" 

We  trudged  back  to  town. 

*'What  a  site  for  a  university!  .  .  the  men  who  put  those  build- 
ings up  there  on  the  Hill  must  have  dreamed  greatly  .  .  look  at  the 
sun !  ,   .   the  buildings  are  transfigured  into  a  fairy  city !" 

My  office  as  social  manager  for  Baxter  during  his  stay  I  con- 
ducted badly.  I  was  so  excited  and  flattered  by  the  visit  of  one 
whom  I  considered  one  of  the  first  geniuses  of  the  world,  that  I 
hardly  knew  what  I  was  doing.  I  listened  to  all  he  said  as  if  an 
oracle  spoke. 

I  asked  him  if  he  would  like  to  meet  some  of  the  professors  on 
the  Hill  .  .  I  hurriedly  gathered  together  a  small  group  of  them 
and  Baxter  gave  a  talk  to  them  in  one  of  the  unoccupied  recitation 
rooms.  Nor  did  he  fail  in  telling  them  that  in  me  Kansas  had  a 
great  poet  in  the  making  .  .  the  professors  who  were  not  invited 
to  my  hasty  reception  considered  themselves  slighted. 

When  I  saw  Baxter  off  at  the  station  we  were  calling  each  other 
by  our  first  names. 

"Good-bye,  Johnnie!" 

"Good-bye,  Penton!" 

"Don't  fail  to  visit  me  at  Warriors'  River,  this  fall,  if  you  can 
do  so  conveniently." 

I  assured  him  that  I  would  not  fail. 

For  I  had  spoken  with  him  of  my  determination  to  ship  on  the 
Great  Lakes  for  a  few  months,  to  see  if  I  couldn't  garner  some  poetic 
material  for  my  poems  of  modern  life  that  I  was  writing  for  the 
National  Magazine. 

"My  wife  and  I  will  be  at  Warriors'  River  till  late  in  the  fall. 
We're  staying  at  Stephen  Barton's  Health  Home.  Barton  is  a 
good  friend  of  mine.  .  .  I  am  helping  him  out,  since  he  left  New 
Jersey,  where  he  was  forced,  by  a  series  of  petty  prosecutions,  to 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  301 

give  up  Perfection  City.  .  .  My  wife  will  be  glad  to  see  you  .  .  she 
knows  your  poetry  already." 

The  weather  was  warm  again.  My  next  to  my  last  college  year 
was  drawing  to  a  close.  Not  that  I  was  a  graduate  .  .  my  course 
was  a  special  one,  and  I  had  not  followed  even  that  closely. 

"If  you'll  graduate,"  Jarvis  Alexander  Mackworth  urged  me, 
joking  in  the  Kansas  fashion,  "I  will  present  you  with  a  great 
bouquet  of  beauty  roses  .  .  I'd  like  to  see  you  vindicate  Lang- 
worth's  and  my  judgment  of  you.  For  you  have  many,  many 
professors  and  people  on  the  Hill  who  don't  believe  in  you,  and, 
frankly, — say  it  was  a  mistake  ever  to  have  let  you  in." 

Mackworth  was  one  of  the  regents  of  the  school. 

"In  fact,  once  one  of  the  professors  rose,  at  a  meeting,  ably 
reinforced  by  several  others,  to  complain  that  you  were  actually 
crazj',  and  a  detriment  to  the  school." 

"And  what  did  you  say,  Mr.  Mackworth,  didn't  you  defend  me?" 

"Yes,  God  pity  me,  I  did,"  he  jested.  "I  remembered  how  I  was 
asked  to  quit  here,  too.  In  the  days  when  General  Fred  Furniss 
was  also  looked  on  as  an  unruly,  rather  undesirable  member  of  the 
student  body  .  .  we  were  classmates.   .   . 

"I  replied  that  no  doubt  you  were  crazy,  you  starry  young  tramp, 
you!  .  .  but  that  I  wished  some  of  the  professors  shared  a  little 
of  your  virus   .   .  it  might  make  them  more  alive  and  interesting." 

Again  I  was  absolutely  starvation-ridden.  Several  tramp-poems 
that  I  sold  to  Everybody's  kept  me  literally  in  bread  and  cheese  for 
a  month.     I  was  still  madly  in  love  with  Vanna  at  long  distance. 

There  came  an  opportunity  for  me  to  make  a  few  dollars  and  to 
show  off  before  her,  at  the  same  time. 

The  Copperwell  Street  Show  came  to  town.  They  lined  the  main 
street  with  booths,  and  outside  of  town,  in  a  large  pasture,  circus 
tents  were  pitched,  in  which  the  usual  one-ringed  circus  was  to  be 
shown  .  .  and  they  had  six  lions  in  a  cage  .  .  advertised  as  Nubian 
lions,  the  largest  and  fiercest  of  their  kind  .  .  their  trainer  never 
going  in  among  them  except  at  peril  of  his  life.  A  gold  medal  was 
offered  to  anyone  who  would  go  in  among  the  lions  alone,  and  make  a 
speech  to  the  audience  from  the  inside  of  the  cage. 

I  negotiated  with  the  management,  but   asked  for  the  medal's 


302  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

equivalent  in  money.  I  was  offered  twenty-five  dollars  if  I  would 
go  in,  and  repeat  my  speech,  each  one  of  the  three  nights  the  show 
would  be  held. 

I  was  to  go  in  for  the  first  time  that  very  night  .  .  to  clinch  my 
lagging  resolution,  the  story  was  printed  in  the  local  papers.  .  . 

"JOHN  GREGORY  TIRED  OF  LIFE 


KANSAS  POET  TO  TALK  AMONG  LIONS," 

Jack  Travers  was  at  his  facetious  best. 

Considering  myself  heroic,  and  thinking  with  inner  joy  how  Vanna 
Andrews  would  be  there,  I  spent  the  day  in  committing  to  memory 
the  salient  points  on  the  nature  and  habits  of  lions,  from  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica.   .   . 

People  looked  at  me  both  with  amusement  and  admiring  amaze- 
ment as  they  saw  me  about,  late  that  aftei*noon.   .   . 

"Now  tell  me  the  honest  truth  about  the  lions,"  I  asked  of  the 
trainer. 

"They're  a  pretty  bad  lot." 

"Come  on.     I've  made  up  my  mind  to  go  in,  and  I'm  not  afraid." 

" — though  lions  are  not  as  bad  as  leopards  and  tigers  .  .  there's 
no  telling  when  they  might  jump  you  .  .  there's  only  one  chance  in 
a  thousand  that  they  will  .  .  but  you  may  bring  one  up  from  being 
a  cub  .  .  and,  one  morning,  because  of  something  you  can't  read 
in  its  animal  mind — it  not  liking  its  breakfast  or  something — it  may 
jump  you,  give  one  crunch,  and  snuff  you  out  like  a  candle  .  .  it's 
that  chance  that  you  take  that  makes  it  seem  brave." 

"Thanks,  I'll  take  the  chance." 

"Are  you  sure  you'll  have  enough  command  of  yourself  to  make  a 
speech  ?" 

" — Certain  .  .  I've  committed  to  memory  almost  all  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica  article  on  lions  .   .  I'm  going  to  give  them  that.  .  ." 

"Gregory !  Gregory !"  the  crowd  was  calling,  half  in  derisive 
jocularity,  half  in  uneasy  admiration.   .   . 

The  trainer  shunted  me  into  the  cage,  after  seating  his  lions  in  a 
half-moon  on  their  tubs. 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  303 

"Quick!  Step  In!  We'll  be  on  the  outside  ready  with  hot  irons 
in  case  anything  goes  wrong!" 

I  didn't  know  whether  the  trainer  was  jesting  or  serious. 

"Don't  think  of  them  at  all.  They'll  sit  still  .  .  you  can  turn 
your  back  to  them  and  face  the  audience.  It  will  be  safe.  Only 
don't  make  any  unexpected,  quick  motions." 

I  was  in  among  them.     The  door  clanged  behind  me. 

Nobody  jeered  now.     All  was  filled  with  an  expectant  hush. 

Then,  as  if  strange  and  a-far  from  myself,  I  stepped  easily  into 
the  very  centre  of  the  half  moon  of  squatting  beasts,  and  made  my 
speech  .  .  at  the  end,  there  was  hardly  any  applause  till  I  was 
safely  out  of  the  cage.  .  .  Then  there  was  a  tumult.  Shouts,  cat- 
calls, whoops,  and  a  great  noise  of  hearty  hand-clapping. 

I  stood  beside  the  ropes  as  the  people  of  Laurel  surged  by,  many 
of  them  shaking  me  by  the  hand  .  .  Vanna  came  by,  with  the  big 
football  player  with  her,  bulking  behind  her  slight  loveliness  .  . 
lightly  she  put  a  tiny,  gloved  hand  in  mine  .  .  a  glove  neatly 
mended  at  the  fingers  .  .  congratulating  me,  half  with  feeling,  half 
with  amusement.  .  . 

*'That  was  reckless  and  brave,  Mr.  Gregory." 

I  was  speechless  with  frightened  delight  over  her  words,  and  the 
pressure  of  her  hand. 

I  turned  to  the  trainer  before  I  went  to  my  room  over  the  tin-shop. 

"You  say  the  leopards  are  most  dangerous?" 

"Yes." 

"For  twenty-five  dollars  a  night  I  will  go  in  with  them,  alone, 
and  run  them  around  with  a  whip."  As  I  proposed  this,  in  the 
background  of  my  consciousness  was  the  conviction  that  by  so  doing 
I  could  win  Vanna's  love.  .  . 

"No  .  .  the  leopards  are  too  uncertain." 

The  papers  were  full  of  my  deed.  And  I  was  not  made  fun  of, 
but  commended.  And  it  was  announced  (for  advertising  purposes 
only,  of  course)  that  the  management  of  the  show  had  approached 
me  with  an  offer  to  travel  as  a  trainer  of  wild  animals. 

The  second  night  I  was  rather  blase.  I  shook  my  finger  playfully 
in  the  face  of  one  of  the  seated  lions  .  .  to  have  a  sensation  of  a 
thousand  prickles  running  sharp  through  each  pore,  when  the  lion 
responded  with  an  open,  crimson-mouthed,  yellow-fanged  snarl;  I 


304  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

smelt  the  carrion  fetor  of  his  breath.  I  stepped  back  rather  quickly. 
All  the  animals  grew  restless  and  furtive.  Little  greenish-amber 
gleams  lit  and  flickered  in  their  eyes. 

I  pulled  myself  together.    Deliberately  I  turned  my  back  on  them. 

" — So  you  see  plainly,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  a  lion  is,  after 
all,  a  much  misrepresented,  gentle  beast." 

The  trainer  was  piqued  when  I  walked  out,  that  night. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  tell  the  people  that  my  lions  are  harmless 
and  gentle  .  .  if  you  do  that  to-morrow  night,  I'll  see  to  it  that 
you  get  the  medal,  and  not  the  money." 

The  afternoon  of  the  following  day,  while  the  girl  who  trained 
the  leopards  was  in  the  cage  of  the  latter,  they  jumped  on  her,  and 
tore  her  back  with  their  claws.  Dripping  with  blood,  she  whipped 
them  back,  inch  by  inch,  into  their  living-cage,  that  led  by  a  small 
door  into  the  big  one  used  for  exhibitions.  A  shiver  ran  through 
me  at  the  news  of  the  girl's  mishap.  I  was  glad  they  had  not  taken 
me  up  as  regards  the  leopards.  And  my  being  among  the  lions  now 
also  seemed  less  of  a  joke.  At  least,  that  last  night,  I  felt  it  not 
to  be,  I  delivered  a  constrained  discourse  and  only  breathed  freely 
when  outside  their  cage. 

And  in  a  few  weeks  my  unique  and  single  glory  was  snatched  from 
me.  The  show  had  moved  to  Salina,  and  a  barber  in  that  town 
had  shaved  their  keeper  in  the  cage,  while  the  lions  sat  around. 

Before  leaving  for  my  projected  summer  as  worker  on  the  boats 
of  the  Great  Lakes,  I  snatched  at  a  passing  adventure:  the  Kansas 
City  Post  had  me  walk  from  Laurel  to  Kansas  City  with  the  famous 
walker,  Weston. 

The  man  was  going  across  the  continent  a-foot.  When  he  saw 
I  was  sticking  the  fifty  miles  or  so  with  him,  he  became  friendly 
and  talked  with  me  of  the  athletes  of  former  days  .  .  the  great  run- 
ners, walkers,  fighters,  oarsmen  .  .  and  he  knew  intimately  also 
many  well  known  journalists  and  literary  men  of  whom  he  dis- 
coursed. 

Time  and  again,  like  a  bicycle  pedalled  too  slow,  he  stepped  awry 
on  so  small  an  obstacle  as  a  cinder,  and  toppled  over  on  his  face  like 
an  automaton  running  down. 

**No,  no !    Don't  touch  me.    I  must  get  up  myself  .  .  that's  not 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  305 

in  the  game  .  ."  his  rising  was  a  hard,  slow  effort  .  .  he  regained 
his  feet  with  the  aid  of  his  metal-tipped  cane.  .  .  . 

"Keep  baclc !  Keep  back !"  to  the  people,  gangs  of  curious  boys 
mostly,  who  followed  close  on  his  heels.  And  he  poked  backwards 
with  the  sharp  metallic  point  of  the  stick.   .   . 

"People  follow  close  on  me,  stupid,  like  donkeys.  If  I  didn't 
keep  that  point  swinging  back,  when  I  slacked  my  pace  or  stopped 
they  would  walk  right  up  on  me  .  .  ." 

Dr.  Percival  Hammond,  managing  editor  of  the  New  York  Inde- 
pendent,  the  first  magazine  to  print  my  poems,  came  to  town  .  . 
to  lecture  on  his  favourite  topic  of  international  peace. 

It  occurred  to  me  strongly  that  I  ought  to  afford  him  some  wit- 
ness of  my  gratitude  for  what  his  magazine  had  done  for  me. 

Though  broke,  I  borrowed  ten  dollars  from  the  owner  of  a  lunch 
counter  where  I  ate. 

"I  want  to  give  a  dinner  to  Dr.  Hammond  .  .  his  magazine  has 
helped  me  as  a  poet  .  .  it  is  obvious  that  I  can't  give  the  dinner 
at  your  lunch  counter." 

Ten  dollars  was  all  the  lunchcounter  man  would  lend  me. 

But  Walsh  Summers  of  the  Bellman  House  said  I  could  give 
a  luncheon  in  honour  of  Hammond  at  fifty  cents  a  plate  .  .  he  would 
allot  me  two  tables  .  .  and  a  separate  room  .  .  and  I  could  invite 
nineteen  professors  .  .  and  he  would  throw  in  two  extras  for  Jack 
Travers  and  myself. 

I  gave  the  lunch,  inviting  the  professors  I  liked  best. 

After  dessert  and  a  few  speeches  I  told  them  how  I  had  borrowed 
the  money.  Hammond  privately  tried  to  pay  me  back  out  of  his 
own  pocket,  but  I  wouldn't  let  him. 

•  •••••• 

I  asked  Hammond  if  he  knew  Penton  Baxter. 

"Yes ;  we  printed  his  first  article,  you  know  .  .  just  as  we  gave 
you  your  start.  .  . 

"Baxter  is  the  most  remarkable  combination  of  genius  and  jackass 
I  have  ever  run  into.  But  don't  ever  tell  him  that  I  said  that.  He  has 
no  sense  of  humour  .  .  everything  is  of  equal  import  to  him  .  . 
his  toothache  is  as  tragic  as  all  the  abuses  of  the  capitalist  system." 


306  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

On  the  way  to  the  Great  Lakes  there  are  several  people  I  must 
stop  and  see,  and  show  myself  to. 

I  stop  at  Topeka  and  visit  Dad  Rother  .  .  a  columnist  on  a 
newspaper  there,  of  more  than  local  fame  .  .  aji  obviously  honest- 
to-God  bachelor  .  .  he  is  afflicted  with  dandruff  and  his  hair  is 
almost  gone.  He  shows  me  photographs  of  Mackworth  and  of 
Uncle  Bill  Struthers,  each  autographed  with  accompanying  homely 
sentiment. 

I  catch  myself  pretending  an  interest  in  Rother's  column,  but 
really  actuated  by  a  desire  to  plant  myself  in  his  mind,  and  to  have  a 
notice  in  his  paper  about  me  .  .  anything  that  Dad  Rother  has 
in  his  column  is  copied  in  all  the  Kansas  papers. 

•  •••••• 

I  drop  in  at  a  Leavenworth  newspaper  office,  ostensibly  to  bor- 
row the  use  of  a  typewriter. 

But  the  stick  or  so  put  in  the  paper  about  my  passing  through 
Leavenworth  pleases  me. 

General  Fred  Furniss  is  stationed  at  Fort  Leavenworth.  I  must 
visit  him. 

•  •••••• 

General  Furniss  walked  in  rapidly  as  if  executing  a  military 
manoevour,  both  hands  held  forth  in  welcome.  He  was  "Napoleonic" 
in  size,  and,  also  like  Napoleon,  he  carried  too  much  belly  in  front 
of  him.     He  wore  a  closely  curling  salt-and-pepper  beard.  .  . 

He  commented  on  my  "military  carriage" — asked  me  if  I  had  ever 
gone  to  a  military  academy.   .   . 

I  yielded  to  an  instinct  for  deprecative  horse-play,  one  of  my 
worst  faults,  begot  of  an  inferiority-complex. 

"No,  I've  never  gone  to  a  military  academy,  but  I've  had  a  hole 
in  the  seat  of  my  pants  so  generally,  and  I  have  had  to  walk  erect 
so  much  to  keep  my  coat  tail  well  down  to  hide  it,  that  that  is 
where  I  acquired  my  military  carriage." 

The  general's  eyes  twinkled. 

"Take  a  chair.  I  have  heard  of  you,  Mr.  Gregory  .  .  I  have 
watched  your  work,  too.  Roosevelt  knows  about  it  .  .  has  spoken 
of  it  to  me  .  .  has  remarked:  'there's  a  young  fellow — your  poet- 
chap  in  Kansas — that  will  be  worth  watching  .  .  why  is  it,  Fred, 
that  every  man  of  any  talent  whatever  in  Kansas,  instantly  gets  the 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  307 


eye  of  the  nation?  .  .  we're  always  expecting  something  big  from 
William  Allen  White's  State'." 

A  week  or  so  of  work  for  a  Polish-Catholic  farmer  .  .  who  locked 
me  out  of  his  house,  when  he  and  his  family  went  to  mass  the  one 
Sunday  I  was  with  him.  He  asked  me  if  I  wanted  a  book  to  read. 
As  the  only  book  he  possessed  was  Thomas  a  Kempis'  Imitation 
of  Christ,  I  took  it,  and  learned  Christian  humility,  reading  it,  in 
the  orchard.  Surely  this  farmer  was  a  practical  Christian.  He 
believed  in  his  fellow  man  and  at  the  same  time  gave  him  no  oppor- 
tunity to  abuse  his  faith  in  him.  .  , 

•  •••••• 

It  was  pleasant,  this  working  for  from  a  few  days  to  a  week,  then 
sauntering  on  .  .  putting  up  at  cheap  little  country  hotels  over- 
night.    I  liked  it  better  than  tramping.  .  . 

I  pitched  hay,  I  loaded  lumber,  I  dug,  I  planted,  I  reaped. 

In  lower  Minnesota  a  Swedish  emigrant  farmer  hired  me  to  help 
him  with  his  hay  crop.  He  and  I  and  his  lanky  son,  Julius  .  .  just 
coming  out  of  adolescence  .  .  we  worked  away  from  sun-up  till 
moon-rise.  .  . 

The  first  day  I  congratulated  myself  for  working  for  that  par- 
ticular farmer.     The  meat  at  table  was  abundant  and  fresh. 

But  before  my  two  weeks  were  up  I  had  grown  weary  of  the  diet. 
They  had  killed  a  cow  .  .  and  cow-meat  was  what  I  found  set 
before  me  morning,  noon,  and  night, — every  day.  I  complained 
about  it  to  Julius  .  .  "when  we  kill  a  cow  ain't  we  got  to  eat  it?" 
he  replied. 

Every  afternoon  we  participated  in  a  pleasant  Swedish  custom. 
The  two  women  of  the  household,  the  mother  and  grandmother,  with 
blue  cloth  rolled  about  their  head  for  headgear,  brought  us  coffee 
and  cake  a-field.  .  . 

"Aeftermittagscaffee,"  they  called  it. 

It  refreshed  us ;  we  worked  on  after  that  till  late  supper  by  lamp, 
driving  back  to  the  house  by  moonlight. 

At  Duluth  I  found  that  a  strike  prevailed  on  the  Lakes.  I  was 
held  in  doubt  whether  I  ought  to  sail,  for  I  would  have  to  do  so  as 
strike-breaker,  which  was  against  my  radical  code  .  .  but,  then,  I 


308  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

had  come  over-land  all  the  way  from  Laurel,  to  voyage  the  Great 
Lakes  for  the  poetry  to  be  found  there  .  ,  and  I  must  put  my 
muse  above  such  things  as  strikes. 

I  signed  on,  on  a  big  ore  boat,  as  porter.  .  . 

That  means,  as  third  cook ;  my  task  the  washing  and  scouring  of 
greasy  pots,  pans,  and  dishes  .  .  and  waiting  on  the  firemen  and 
deckhands  at  meals. 

The  James  Eads  Howe  took  on  a  cargo  of  rust-coloured  iron  ore 
at  Twin  Harbours  .  .  the  gigantic  machinery  grided  and  crashed 
all  night,  pouring  the  ore  into  the  hold,  to  the  dazzling  flare  of 
electric  lights.   .   . 

Here  for  the  first  time  I  conceived  myself  to  be  caught  in  the 
great  industrial  turmoil.  If  I  were  to  derive  song  from  this,  it 
would  be  song  for  giants,  or  rather,  for  machines  that  had  grown 
to  gigantic  proportions  from  the  insect  world  .  .  diminutive  men 
made  parts  of  their  anatomy  as  they  swung  levers  and  operated 
cranes.  .  . 

We  kicked  outward  on  the  long  drop  down  Lake  Superior,  the 
largest  of  the  five  Great  Lakes.  It  was  like  an  inland  ocean.  The 
water  of  it  is  always  so  cold  that,  when  a  ship  is  wrecked  there, 
good  swimmers  who  might  otherwise  keep  up  till  rescued,  often 
perish  of  the  cold.  .  . 

Day  and  night  the  horizon  was  smoky-blue  with  forest  fires  .  .  one 
afternoon  our  deck  was  covered  with  birds  that  had  flown  out  over 
the  water  to  escape  the  flames.  .  . 

And  once  we  saw  lifted  in  the  sky  three  steamboats  sailing  upside 
down,  a  mirage  .  .  and,  once,  a  gleaming  city  in  the  clouds,  that 
hung  there  spectrally  for  about  five  minutes,  then  imperceptibly 
faded  out.   .  . 

"That's  a  reflection  of  some  real  city,"  explained  the  tall  Cana- 
dian-Scotch cook  .  ."  once  I  recognised  Quebec  hanging  in  the  sky  .  . 
— thought  I  even  saw  people  walking  and  traffic  moving." 

Half-way  across  to  the  Soo  Canal  we  ran  into  my  first  lake- 
storm. 

"The  sailor  on  the  Great  Lakes  has  a  harder  time  than  the  ocean 
sailor.  He  can't  make  his  ship  run  before  a  storm.  He's  got  to  look 
out  for  land  on  every  side." 

Right  over  my  bunk  where  I  slept,  ceaselessly  turned  and  turned 
the  propeller  shaft.     The  noise  and  roar  of  the  engines  was  ever 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  309 

in  my  ears,  and  the  peculiar  ocean-like  noise  of  the  stokehold  .  .  and 
the  metallic  clang  of  coal  as  it  shot  from  shovels.   .   . 

The  night  of  the  storm  the  crashing  of  the  water  and  the  whistling 
impact  of  wave-weighted  winds  kept  me  awake. 

I  jumped  into  my  clothes  and  went  into  the  fire-room.  Hardly 
able  to  keep  their  feet,  the  firemen  toiled  away,  scattering  shovels- 
full  of  coal  evenly  over  the  fires,  wielding  their  slice  bars  .  .  greet- 
ing with  oaths  and  comic  curses  the  awkward  coal  passer  who  spilled 
with  his  laden  wheelbarrow  into  the  slightly  lower  pit  where  they 
stood. 

I  quit  the  James  Eads  Howe  at  Ashtabula,  after  several  round 
trips  in  her,  the  length  of  the  Lakes. 

I  freighted  it  to  Chicago,  where  I  shipped,  again  as  porter,  on  a 
package  freighter. 


The  captain  of  the  package  freighter  Overland  should  have  been 
anything  but  a  captain.  He  was  a  tall,  flabby,  dough-faced  man, 
as  timid  as  a  child  just  out  of  the  nursery. 

We  had  taken  on,  as  one  of  our  firemen,  a  Canuck,  who,  from 
the  first,  boasted  that  he  was  a  "bad  man".  .   . 

He  intimidated  the  cook  right  off.  He  punched  in  a  glass  par- 
tition to  emphasise  a  filthy  remark  he  had  made  to  the  head  engineer. 
He  went  after  me,  to  bully  and  domineer  me,  next. 

It  looked  as  if  we  were  in  for  a  hard  voyage  to  the  Georgian  Bay. 

The  Canuck,  at  the  very  first  meal,  terrorised  the  crew  that  sat 
down  with  him.  I  looked  him  over  carefully,  and  realised  that 
something  must  be  done. 

He  flung  a  filthy  and  gratuitous  expression  my  way.  Silently  I 
stepped  back  from  the  mess  room,  untied  my  apron,  and  meant  to 
go  in  and  try  to  face  him  down.  But  at  that  juncture,  my  courage 
failed  me,  and  instead  of  inviting  the  rough-neck  out  on  deck,  as  I 
had  tried  to  force  myself  to  do,  I  hurried  to  the  captain's  cabin. 

The  captain  said,  "Come  in!"  to  my  knock.  He  was  sitting,  of 
all  things,  in  dirty  pajamas,  at  a  desk  .  .  though  it  was  mid-day 
.  .  his  flabby,  grey- white  belly  exuded  over  his  tight  pajama  waist- 
string  .  .  the  jacket  of  the  pajamas  hung  open,  with  all  but  one 
button  off. 

I  complained  to  the  captain  of  the  bully — repeated  how  he  had 


310  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

bellowed  at  me  to  tell  the  unmentionable  skipper  he  would  receive 
his  bumps  bloody  well,  too,  if  the  latter  did  not  stick  to  his  own 
part  of  the  ship. 

I  saw  fright  in  the  captain's  face.  .  . 

"It's  up  to  the  chief  engineer." 

"Either  that  fellow  goes  off  this  ship  or  I  do.  You'll  have  to 
hire  another  third  cook." 

The  boat  was  sailing  in  an  hour. 

I  walked  back  for  my  few  effects.  But,  on  the  way  back,  I  took 
hold  of  myself  and  determined  to  stick  by  my  guns.  I  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  would  not  leave  the  boat,  and  that,  at  the  first 
hostile  move  of  the  bully  I  would  oppose  him — besides,  what  had  the 
fellow  done,  so  far,  besides  chucking  a  bluff? 

My  opportunity  to  live  up  to  my  resolve  came  at  mess  for  sup- 
per.    There  was  a  smoking  platter  of  cabbage  set  before  the  boys. 

"What  the  hell !    Who  wants  to  eat  bloody  cabbage." 

And  snatching  up  a  handful  of  the  dripping,  greasy  vegetable, 
he  was  about  to  fling  it  into  the  face  of  one  of  the  men  opposite, 
when,  without  giving  myself  a  chance  to  hesitate,  I  stepped  up 
quickly  and  grabbed  the  "bad  man's"  wrist.  The  cabbage  went 
high  and  spattered  all  over  the  opposite  wall. 

The  bully  glared  like  an  enraged  bull  at  me. 

"I'll " 

Quaking  in  my  boots,  I  made  my  eyes  glare  level  with  his. 

"Listen  to  me,  bo,"  I  bluffed,  "I  ain't  much  on  guff,  and  I  don't 
want  specially  to  fight  .  .  but  I'm  waiter  in  this  mess  room  and 
you  don't  pull  anything  like  this  here,  unless  you  do  it  over  my 
dead  body." 

"That's  just  what   I  will  do  .  .  I'll— I'll "   and  the   chap, 

pale  with  what  seemed  insane  rage,  started  to  his  feet. 

"Ah,  sit  down!"  I  commanded,  marvelling  at  my  nerve,  and  push- 
ing him  violently  by  the  shoulders  back  on  the  bench  .  .  then, 
deliberately,  I  turned  my  back,  and  walked  away,  expecting  any 
moment  to  have  him  on  me  like  a  clawing  wild  cat. 

With  seeming  calm  and  nonchalance  I  made  the  kitchen.  With 
a  semblance  of  outward  serenity  I  picked  up  a  rag  and  returned  to 
wipe  off  the  wall.  I  was  vastly  relieved  to  find  that  the  bluff  had 
worked. 

The  Canuck  was  finishing  his  meal  in  silence. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  311 

From  that  moment  till  the  end  of  the  voyage  he  was  as  quiet  and 
unobtrusive  as  anyone  could  wish  him  to  be.   .  . 

I  have  a  curious  habit  of  often  waking  up  in  the  night  from  deep 
slumber,  and  breaking  into  laughter  over  some  funny  incident  or 
other  that  has  happened  to  me  a  long  time  ago  .  .  I  have  chuckled 
over  this  incident  many  times  .  .  if  that  bully  only  knew  how  ter- 
rorised he  really  had  me !  .  . 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  Georgian  Bay  and  the  beauty  of 
its  thousands  of  islands  .  .  as  we   steamed  through  them  in  the 
dawn,  they  loomed  about  us  through  sun-golden  violet  mists.   .  . 
Here  as  small  as  the  chine  of  some  swimming  animal,  there  large 
enough  for  a  small  forest  of  trees  to  grow  upon  them.  .  . 

Another  storm  .  .  on  Lake  Huron  .  .  a  fair-sized  one. 

I  was  walking  along  the  deck,  just  after  dawn,  the  waves  riding 
and  running  and  shattering  aboard.  I  carried  the  dinner  bell,  was 
ringing  it  for  breakfast  .  .  when  the  greatest  wave  I  have  ever  seen 
on  the  Lakes  came  running,  high-crested,  toward  the  boat, — that 
seemed  to  know  what  was  happening,  for  it  rose  to  meet  it,  like  a 
sentient  being.   .   . 

The  wave  smashed  .  .  hit  the  galley  and  washed  over  the  top  of 
it,  catching  me  in  a  cataract  as  I  hugged  close.  I  was  driven  hard 
against  the  taut  cable  wire  that  made  our  only  railing.  For  a 
moment  I  thought  the  water  reaching  up  from  over-side  as  the 
vessel,  lurched  would  clutch  me  and  suck  me  down. 

A  close  and  breathless  call.  A  rending,  splintering  sound  told  me 
damage  had  been  done.  I  looked  toward  the  captain's  cabin  .  .  and 
laughed  heartily,  for  all  my  discomfort  and  dangerous  escape  .  . 
for  the  whole  side  of  the  cabin  had  been  stove  in, — and,  terrified, 
his  eyes  sticking  out,  in  his  dirty  underclothes  the  captain  had 
been  hurtled  forth,  his  face  still  stupid  from  sleep  though  full 
of  fear. 

I  rushed  up  to  him.     His  drawers  sagged  pitiably  with  wet. 

"A  close  shave,  sir!"  I  remarked. 

When  I  brought  him  his  breakfast  he  was  still  trembling. 

I  left  the  package  freighter  Overland.    It  was  almost  time  for 


312  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  new  school  year.  But  Warriors'  River  lay  in  my  way  back  to 
Laurel,  and  I  determined  to  stop  off  and  pay  a  visit  to  Baxter,  at 
Barton's  Health  Home.  .  . 

I  was  disappointed  with  my  summer.  In  terms  of  poetic  output. 
I  had  written  only  three  or  four  poems  dealing  with  life  on  the 
Lakes,  and  these  were  barely  publishable  in  the  National  Magazine. 
I  realise  now  that  poetic  material  is  not  to  be  collected  as  a  hunter 
goes  gunning  for  game.  It  cannot  be  deliberately  sought  and  found. 
It  must  just  happen. 

Yet  all  the  things  that  I  had  seen  and  been  through,  I  knew, 
would  live  in  my  mind  till  they  were  ready  of  themselves  to  get  birth 
in  words.  I  knew  that  I  had  not  lost  a  single  dawn  nor  one  night  of 
ample  moon.  And  there  drifted  back  into  my  remembrance  that  night 
when  the  Italian  coal-passer  had  come  to  my  bunk  and  wakened 
me,  that  I  might  come  forth  with  him  and  observe  a  certain  won- 
derful cloud-effect  about  the  full,  just-risen  moon,  over  Huron.  .  . 

I  had  cursed  at  him,  thought  he  was  trying  to  make  a  monkey 
of  me  .  .  for  I  had  dropped  on  deck  a  letter  to  me  from  Lephil  of 
the  National^  and  so  the  crew  had  learned  that  I  was  a  poet  among 
them. 

But  I  was  not  being  spoofed  .  .  actual  tears  of  surprise  and 
chagrin  came  into  the  coal-passer's  eyes.  Then  I  had  been  ashamed 
of  myself.  .   . 

"Of  course  I'll  go  on  deck  .  .  mighty  fine  of  you  to  wake  me!" 
I  slid  into  my  pants  and  went  up  the  ladder 

To  envisage,  rapturous,  a  great,  flaming  globe  of  shadowy  silver 
.  .  and  across  it,  in  a  single  straight  ebony  bar,  one  band  of  jet- 
black  cloud  .  .  and  the  water,  from  us  to  the  apparition  of  beauty, 
danced,  dappled,  with  an  ecstasy  of  quivering  silver.  .   . 

I  have  met  many  a  man  in  my  wanderings,  simple  and  silent,  who 
felt  beauty  like  a  poet  or  an  artist,  without  the  poet's  or  artist's 
gifts  of  expression, — with,  on  the  contrary,  a  queer  shame  that  he 
was  so  moved,  a  suspicion  that,  somehow,  it  was  not  manly  to  be 
moved  by  a  sunrise  or  sunset. 

I  found  Penton  Baxter,  his  wife  Hildreth,  and  their  child,  Dan, 
living  in  two  tents,  among  a  grove  of  trees,  near  the  main  building 
of  the  Health  Home.     These  two  tents  had,  of  course,  board  floors, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  313 

and  there  was  a  woman  who  kept  them  in  condition  .  .  and  there 
was  a  rack  for  towels,  and  hot  water  was  supplied  by  pipes  from  a 
nearby  building.  I  think  the  tents  were  even  wired  for  electric 
light. 

Baxter  welcomed  me.  But  I  took  a  room  for  a  week  in  town, 
though  he  urged  me  to  stay  with  him.  But  when  I  had  the  means 
I  liked  better  to  be  independent.  I  calculated  living  a  week  in  War- 
riors' River  for  ten  or  twelve  dollars.  That  would  leave  me  thirty 
dollars  over,  from  what  I  had  earned  while  working  on  the  Overland. 

Then,  back  to  the  university  for  my  last  year  of  leisurely  study 
and  reading,  in  the  face  of  the  desolate  poverty  that  would  have 
defeated  many  another  man,  but  to  which  I  was  used  as  a  customary 
condition.  After  that — Paris  or  London,  or  both!  Kansas  was 
growing  too  small  for  me. 

I  have  mentioned  that  Baxter  had  a  head  too  large  for  his  body. 
Daniel,  his  son,  slight  and  frail  and  barely  eight  years  of  age,  pos- 
sessed the  same  characteristic.   .  . 

I  footed  it  out  to  Baxter's  tents,  faithfully  as  to  a  shrine,  each 
afternoon.  The  mornings  he  and  I  both  occupied  in  writing.  He, 
on  a  novel  which  was  the  story  of  the  love-life  of  his  wife  and 
himself,  and  of  his  literary  struggles,  called  Love's  F orthf aring ;  I,  on 
my  abortive  songs  of  the  Great  Lakes  that  all  came  forth  still-born 
.  .  because  I  was  yet  under  the  vicious  literary  influence  of  the 
National  Magazine,  and  was  writing  my  verse,  trying  to  be  inspired 
by  the  concepts  of  middle-class  morality  .  .  or  what  was  even  worse, 
I  was  attempting  to  glorify  the  under-dog ;  who,  if  he  were  the  demi- 
god Socialists  portray  him,  would  by  no  means  remain  the 
under-dog. 

I  found  Baxter  more  a-flame  than  ever  for  the  utter  reformation 
of  mankind  .  .  In  the  way  they  dressed  .  .  stilT  collars  hurt  the 
nervous  system,  pressing  as  they  did,  on  the  spine  .  .  in  the  books 
they  read  .  .  he  wished  to  start  a  library  that  would  sell  cheaply 
and  bring  all  the  world's  great  thought  and  poetry  into  factory, 
and  every  worker's  home  .  .  all  conventional  ideas  of  marriage  and 
religion  must  go  by  the  board  and  freedom  in  every  respect  be 
granted  to  men  and  women. 

It  was  good  to  listen  to  this  sincere,  naive  man,  still  young  .  , 


314  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

who  would  re-make  life  nearer  to  the  beauty  and  harmony  that 
Shelley  alv  'ireamed  for  mankind.  I  lived  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
reverence  toward  Baxter.  This  man  tried  to  live  his  ideals,  as  well 
as  write  about  them. 

In  matters  of  diet  I  accepted  Baxter's  theories  but,  humanly, 
did  not  live  up  to  them.     He  was  a  vegetarian. 

Later  I  was  to  learn  that  he  was  to  himself  an  experiment  station. 
On  his  own  person  he  directly  and  practically  tried  out  each  idea  .  . 
his  wife  was  also  a  convertee,  slightly  reluctant,  to  his  tests  .  .  and 
his  son,  perforce.  Baxter  actually  kept  a  vegetarian  dog.  "Even 
carnivorous  animals  thrive  better  on  a  vegetarian  diet."  But  the 
dog  was  no  corroboration  of  his  theory.  It  lacked  gloss  and  shine 
to  its  coat,  and  seldom  barked. 

One  afternoon  I  came  upon  Dan,  Baxter's  son,  puking  in  the 
bushes,  not  far  from  the  tents. 

"What's  the  matter,  Dan,"  he  turned  to  me,  wan,  and  serious, 
and  with  a  grown-up  look  on  his  face. 

"Nothing!  Only  sometimes  the  warm  milk  father  has  me  drink 
makes  me  throw  up.     I'm  on  a  milk  diet,  you  know." 

"Does  your  father  know  that  you  can't  keep  the  milk  down.'"' 

"Mostly  it  does  stay  down  .  .  I  guess  father's  all  right,"  he 
defended,  "maybe  the  diet  will  do  me  good." 

"Do  you  ever  get  a  beefsteak.'^" 

"Father  says  meat  is  no  good  .  .  maybe  he's  right  about  killing 
animals.  He  says  it  wouldn't  be  half  so  bad  if  everyone  killed  their 
own  meat,  instead  of  making  brutes  out  of  men  who  do  the  killing 
for  them  .  .  but  it  is  kind  of  hard  on  the  dog,  though,"  and  the  lit- 
tle fellow  laughed. 

•  •••••• 

"I  think  my  boy  is  going  to  become  an  engineer  of  some  sort ;  he's 
always  playing  about  with  machinery,"  Penton  said  to  me.   .  . 

"Suppose  you  let  him  take  a  trip  with  me  to  town,  then.''  I'm 
going  to  look  through  the  Best  o'  Wheat  factory  this  afternoon, 
and  watch  how  Best  o'  Wheat  biscuits  are  made.  Perhaps  he'd 
like  to  see  the  machinery  working !" 

"Johnnie,  I'll  trust  him  with  you,  if  you'll  promise  me  not  to 
meddle  with  his  diet." 

"Of  course." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  315 

"I  don't  like  people  stuffing  him  full  of  candy  and  ice  cream.  I 
want  to  bring  him  up  with  a  good  digestion  and  sound  teeth." 

Daniel  took  my  hand  as  we  went  through  the  factory  from  depart- 
ment to  department.  I  enjoyed  a  paternal  pride  in  the  handsome, 
pale,  preternaturally  intelligent  little  fellow. 

"Look  at  the  young  father !"  exclaimed  one  girl  softly  to  another, 
with  a  touch  of  pathos  in  her  voice,  intimating  that  perhaps  I  was 
a  widower. 

I  blushed  with  pleasure  to  the  tips  of  my  ears,  to  be  thought 
the  father  of  so  prepossessing  a  child. 

It  delighted  him  to  look  into  the  huge  bake  ovens  where  first 
the  wheat  was  baked  in  big  brown  loaves,  before  it  was  broken  up 
into  biscuit  form.  I  thought  of  Hank  Spalton  and  how  he  was 
supposed  to  have  grown  strong  on  a  diet  of  Best  o' 
Wheat. 

It  was  customary  to  serve  sight-seers,  In  a  dining  room  kept 
for  that  purpose,  with  Best  o'  Wheat  and  cream,  and  wheat  coffee 
.  .  .  free.  .  . 

With  a  little  reluctance  Dan  sat  down  and  ate. 

"Hum !  that  was  good ;  but  look  here.  Buzzer"  (that  was  the 
nickname  he  had  invented  for  me)  you  mustn't  tell  Mubby." 

"Mubby?" 

"That's  what  mother  and  I  call  my  father." 

"Of  course  I  won't  tell  him  .  .  and  now  we  must  go  to  a  restau- 
rant and  have  something  real  to  eat." 

"I  can't.     I  don't  dare.     But  I'll  sit  and  watch  you  eat." 

I  ordered  a  steak,  and  persuaded  Dan,  finally,  to  have  one  too. 

*'If  it's  not  good  for  people  to  eat,  why  does  it  taste  so  good.'"' 
mooted  Dan  meditatively.  .  . 

"Now  I'll  be  in  for  it,"  he  added,  as  we  walked  out  of  the  door 
and  started  back  to  the  Health  Home. 

"But  your  father  need  never  know." 

"At  first  I  thought  it  might  be  all  right  to  fool  him  just  this 
once,  But  I  mustn't.  I've  promised  him  I'd  never  lie  to  him  about 
what  I  ate,  and  I  must  keep  my  word  .  .  he'll  whip  me,  perhaps." 

"Does  he  whip  you  much.'"' 

"Not  very  much  .  .  only  when  I  need  it  .  .  and  then  when  I 
cry,  he  stops — so  it  is  never  very  hard !" 


316  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  laughed  at  the  boy's  frank  philosophy.  .  . 

"But  daddy's  so  funny  .  .  not  at  all  like  other  daddies,"  wist- 
fully. 


I  did  not  grow  friendly  enough  with  Mrs.  Baxter  even  to  call 
her  by  her  first  name  of  Hildreth  .   .  during  that  brief  visit.   .   . 

Hildreth  Baxter  was  always  moving  about  leisurely,  gracefully, 
like  some  strange,  pretty  animal.  Not  shy,  just  indifferent,  as  if 
processes  of  thought  were  going  on  inside  of  her  that  made  an 
inner  world  that  sufficed,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  exterior  happenings. 

She  had  a  beautiful  small  head  with  heavy  dark  hair ;  large,  brown, 
thoughtful  eyes  .  .  a  face  so  strong  as  to  be  handsome  rather  than 
beautiful.  She  walked  about  in  bloomers,  languidly  conscious  that 
her  legs  were  graceful  and  lovely.  .  . 

To  her  I  was,  at  that  time,  merely  one  of  her  husband's  visiting 
friends.  .  . 


After  little  Daniel  had  manfully  squared  himself  with  his  con- 
science, Penton  did  not  whip  him.     He  came  to  me. 

"I  did  not  punish  my  boy:  because  it  was  you,  Johnnie,  that 
tempted  him,"  and  he  flushed  angrily.  "I'm  sure  you  didn't  con- 
sider what  you  were  doing.  If  I  thought  you  did  it  out  of  delibera- 
tion, I  would  never  speak  to  you  again  .  .  you  must  learn  not 
to  tamper  with  the  ideals  of  others,  Johnnie." 

I  apologised.  I  spoke  of  my  reverence  and  regard  for  him  and 
his  greatness.  I  asked  him  to  forgive  me,  which  he  did.  And,  as 
I  pronounced  him  to  be  as  great  at  Shelley,  the  Rousseau  of  America 
— his  naive,  youthful  face  wreathed  with  smiles  and  peace  fell 
between  us  again. 


"I  am  thinking  of  going  to  live  at  Eden,  the  Single  Tax  Colony 
not  far  from  Philadelphia  .  .  I  want  you  to  come  there  and  visit  us 
in  the  spring.  In  the  meantime  don't  let  them  make  you  bourgeois 
in  Kansas  .  .  don't  let  them  smash  you  into  the  academic  mould." 

"They  haven't  so  far,  have  they?" 

"But  what  in  the  world  are  you  going  back  to  Kansas  for?" 

"Because  I  have  them  trained  there  to  accept  me.     I  can  do 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  317 

pretty  much  as  I  choose  at  the  university.  But  mainly  I  want  to 
w^rite  my  four-act  play  in  earnest — my  New  Testament  drama, 
Judas.    And  I  know  of  no  better  place  to  go  to." 

"Good-bye,  and  don't  fail  to  pay  me  a  visit  in  the  spring." 

"I  will  .  .   for  a  few  weeks  .  .   on  my  way  to  Paris." 

*'Paris.?     How  are  you  going  to  get  there  .^" 

"I'll  take  a  few  cars  of  cattle  east  to  New  York  from  the  Kansas 
City  stock  yards  .   .  and  I'll  work  my  way  across  on  a  cattle  boat." 

"Good-bye !     I  wish  I  had  your  initiative !" 

"Good-bye !     Mrs.  Baxter  .  .  glad  to  have  met  you !" 

"Good-bye,  Mr.  Gregory,"  and  she  dropped  my  hand  quickly 
and  turned  on  her  heel,  walking  away  with  easy  grace.  I  admired 
the  back  of  her  legs  as  she  disappeared  into  her  tent. 

"Good-bye,  Dan!" 

"Good-bye,  Buzzer !" 

"Daniel,"  called  Mrs.  Baxter  from  the  interior  of  her  tent,  "you 
mustn't  call  Mr.  Gregory  that !" 

At  Laurel  again,  I  found  it  still  a  month  before  fall  session.  All 
summer  I  had  lacked  my  nude  sunbaths  to  which  I  had  become 
accustomed.     So  again  I  sought  my  island. 

I  rented  my  room  over  the  tinshop  again,  and  was  soon  in  the 
thick  of  the  fall  term.  By  this  time  I  had  my  contemporaries  on 
the  hill  very  much  puzzled. 

Henry  Belton,  the  Single  Tax  millionaire,  had  come  to  Kansas 
City.  He  was  so  diminutive  as  to  be  doll-like.  He  had  to  stand 
on  a  box  to  be  seen,  when  he  spoke  from  the  floor,  at  the  banquet 
tendered  him  .  .  and  I  had  gone  in  to  Kansas  City  as  his  guest, 
and  had  been  seated  on  his  right  hand — I,  in  my  painfully  shabby 
clothes. 

The  professors  and  students  could  not  see  why  I  made  such  a 
stir  with  prominent  people,  how  I  held  their  friendship  despite 
my  eccentricities  and  deep  poverty. 

•  •••••• 

"I  can't  help  you  any  more,"  observed  Belton  to  me,  as  we  sat 
in  the  lobby  of  the  Coates  House  where  he  was  putting  up. 

"Who  the  hell's  asking  you  to  help  me.''"  I  replied.  "I  came 
down  from  Laurel  with  no  ulterior  motive;  I  came  just  to  pay  you  a 


318  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

visit,  and  to  thank  you  personally  for  giving  me  six  months  of  free- 
dom from  economic  worry  while  I  wrote  my  fairy  drama  .  .  anyhow, 
please  remember  that  it  wasn't  me  you  helped,  but  Poetry !" 

"It's  too  bad  you  can't  be  a  Single  Taxer,"  he  sighed.  "I  like 
you,  Gregory,  and  I'd  put  you  on  my  pension  list  if  you'd  only 
shift  some  of  your  fanaticism  for  poetry  to  the  Single  Tax  cause." 

Since  then  I  have  been  frankly  sorry  that  I  did  not  play  the 
hypocrite  to  Belton,  in  order  to  be  put  on  a  pension  for  several 
years.  I  might  have  achieved  great  verse  during  the  leisure  so 
afforded  for  calm,  creative  work. 

I  started  a  poetry  club  on  the  Hill  .  .  I  determined  that  it  should 
be  anarchistic  in  principle  .  .  we  should  have  no  officials  .  .  no  dues 
.  .  not  even  a  secretary  to  read  dull  minutes  of  previous  meetings  .  . 
we  should  take  turns  presiding  as  chairman.  And  the  membership 
was  to  be  divided  equally  with  girls. 

But  the  school  year  had  begun  unhappily  for  me.  I  did  not  find 
Vanna  there.     I  went  to  visit  her  homely  roommate. 

"Vanna  has  gone  off  to  Arkansas  .  .  she  is  teaching  school  down 
there  for  the  winter." 

"Thank  God  she's  not  married  somebody !"  I  cried,  forgetting, 
and  giving  myself  away.  Then  Vanna  Andrews'  roommate  saw 
at  last  that  it  was  not  she  I  was  interested  in.  She  gave  way 
to  invective. 

"You !  a  worthless  tramp  like  you !  A  crazy  fool !  .  .  to  dare 
even  hope  that  Vanna  Andrews  would  ever  love  you!"  In  a  torrent 
of  tears  she  asked  me  never  to  speak  to  her  again. 

I  was  sorry  I  had  not  procured  Vanna's  address  before  I  had 
betrayed  myself.  But,  anyhow,  I  wrote  her  a  long  letter  and 
sent  it  in  care  of  the  university  registrar. 

Flamboyantly  I  confessed  my  love  .  .  rehearsed  the  story  of  my 
worship  of  her  from  afar.  .  . 

For  a  month,  every  day,  I  sent  her  a  bulky  envelope  full  of 
mad  verse  and  declarations  of  undying  love.  As  the  letters  were 
not  being  returned,  she  must  be  receiving  them. 

One  morning,  with  trembling  hands  and  a  pounding  heart  that 
nearly   bore   me   down,   it   acted   so   like   a   battering   ram   on   the 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  bl9 

Inside,  I  drew  a  delicately  scented  envelope  from  my  mailbox  .  « 
addressed  in  a  dainty  hand. 

I  kissed  the  letter  again  and  again  before  I  tore  it  open  .  .  it 
was  well  that  I  did  it  then.     I  would  not  have  kissed  it  afterward. 

It  was  filled  with  stinging  rebuke  for  my  presumption  .  .  if  I  had 
a  shred  of  the  gentleman  in  me  I  would  cease  troubling  her  .  .  I 
had  caused  her  exceeding  annoyance  by  my  deluge  and  torrent 
of  absurd  letters  .  .  she  did  not  care  for  me  .  .  she  thought  my 
poetry  was  bad  .  .  and  why  had  I  behaved  so  brutally  toward  her 
former  roommate?  .  . 

I  saw  that  the  homely  girl  had  not  been  remiss  in  writing  to 
Vanna  about  me.  .  . 

My  reply  was  a  very  poetic  letter. 

"I  will  trouble  you  no  more,"  I  ended ;  "but  do  not  destroy  my 
letters  and  poems,  for,  long  after  your  wonderful  beauty  has 
become  a  mere  handful  of  oblivious  dust  blowing  about  the  stones 
of  the  world,  you  will  be  famous  because  a  great  poet  loved  you 
.  ,  a  poet  whom  you  unwisely  and  ignorantly  scorned." 


Dr.  Van  Maarden,  the  Dutch  psychiatrist  and  playwright,  author 
of  De  Kleine  Man,  was  to  come  to  Laurel  to  deliver  his  celebrated 
lectures  on  "The  Socialisation  of  Humanity."  .   . 

Professor  Dineen,  a  flabby,  feminine  little  fellow,  one  of  our 
professors  of  philosophy,  and  hated  by  the  dean  of  his  department 
because  he  was  a  real  philosopher,  despite  his  physical  ludicrous- 
ness, — and  had  published  a  book  which  the  critics  were  hailing 
as  a  real  contribution  to  the  world  of  thought 

Dineen  had  engineered  the  bringing  of  the  semi-radical  Van 
Maarden  to  Laurel.   .  . 

"For  such  men  are  needed  here  .  .  to  rouse  us  out  of  the  petty, 
dogmatic  ways  of  our  crude  pioneers.   .   ." 

"Van  Maarden  is  a  remarkable  man,"  continued  Dineen;  "he 
writes  plays,  poems,  books  of  economic  philosophy,  novels  .  .  recently 
he  tried  to  start  a  co-operative  colony  for  Dutch  farmers  in  South 
Carolina,  but  it  went  on  the  rocks  .  .  and  now  Van  Maarden,  for 
all  his  genius,  is  practically  stranded  here  in  America. 

"It  is,  or  ought  to  be,  one  of  the  duties  of  an  educational  centre 
like  Laurel,  to  aid  such  men  .  .  men  who  travel  about,  disseminating 


320  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

ideas,  carrying  the  torch  of  inspiration  .  .  like  Giordano  Bruno,  in 
former  days." 

Van  Maarden  came  .  .  a  little,  dapper,  black-bearded  man  .  . 
but  a  very  boy  in  his  enthusiasm.  He  advanced  many  doctrines 
at  variance  with  even  the  political  radicalism  of  Kansas. 

But  whether  it  was  his  winning  way  or  his  foreign  reputation, 
he  was  accepted  gravely,  and  ideas  won  consideration,  enunciated 
by  him,  that  would  have  been  looked  on  as  mad,  coming  from  me.  .  . 

Again  the  faculty  were  nonplussed  .  .  puzzled.   .  . 

Dineen,  Van  Maarden  and  I  were  together  much.  And  the  latter 
found  more  delight  in  the  time  when  he  could  discuss  freely  and 
unacademically  with  me  than  when  he  was  invited  to  formal  teas 
and  dinners  by  the  weightier  members  of  the  faculty  and  community. 

It  was  psychic  research  that  we  particularly  discussed.  Van 
Maarden  was  the  greatest  scholar  in  the  Mystic,  the  Occult,  the 
Spiritualistic  that  I  have  ever  met.  He  claimed  to  be  able  to  go 
out  of  the  body  at  will  and  see  what  any  friend  was  up  to  at  any 
time,  in  any  out-of-the-way  place  in  the  world.   .   . 

When  I  jested  that  such  a  faculty  might  sometimes  prove  embar- 
rassing to  his  friends,  he  laughed  and  slapped  me  on  the  back. 


Dineen  was  a  queer  little  chap.  He  roomed  de  luxe  at  the 
Bellman  House. 

One  night,  during  a  cyclone  that  swept  the  town  and  the  adjacent 
country,  a  fragment  of  roof  was  lifted  off  the  hostelry  in  which 
he  dwelt.  The  women-servants  and  waitresses  were  thrown  into  a 
panic.  One,  who  collapsed  on  a  lounge  in  the  upstairs  hall,  swore 
that  Dineen  had  felt  of  her  leg  as  she  lay  there.  A  scandal  was 
started.  I  know  that  Dineen,  in  his  European  fashion,  was  free 
with  his  hands,  when  he  meant  no  harm.  He  had  merely  laid  his 
hand  on  the  girl's  leg,  in  friendly  fashion,  and  asked  if  she  was  hurt. 

But  the  nasty  Puritan  mind  of  the  community  went  to  work,  and 
the  story  was  hawked  about  that  Professor  Dineen,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  cyclone,  had  tried  to  "feel  the  girl  up." 

This,  and  the  fact  that  he  had  been  a  friend  of  mine  (after  my 
forthcoming  scandal  it  counted  strongly  against  him)  later  effected 
in  his  being  requested  to  resign  from  the  faculty. 

But  the  real  cause  of  the  brilliant,  strange  man's  persecution 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  321 

was  the  jealousy  of  the  dean  of  the  philosophical  department  of 
the  former's  real  ability. 

"We  must  do  more  for  this  man  than  we  have  .  .  he  is  a  genius 
.  .  he  has  not  enough  money  to  return  to  Europe  on.   .  . 

"He  has  written  a  curious,  mad  play  called  listral  .  .  one 
dealing  with  psychic  phenomena,  which  we  ought  to  put  on.  .  . 

"That  way  we'll  net  him  three  or  four  hundred  dollars." 

It  was  Dineen  who  spoke. 

We  chanced  to  be  walking  up  the  Hill  together. 

The  school  cheer-leader  was  tall  and  statuesque,  and  his  voice 
was  deep  and  resonant  .  .  but,  though  pleased  with  his  stature  and 
his  vocal  qualifications.  Van  Maarden  decided  on  me  to  play  the  lead 
in  his  abnormal  play  .  .  I  did  not  possess  as  fine  a  voice,  but  I  knew 
the  mystics  almost  as  well  as  he  did  .  .  I  believed  in  spiritism,  and 
would  be  accordantly  sympathetic  with  the  author's  ideas.  .  . 

The  rehearsal  of  the  play  progressed.  Van  Maarden,  receiving 
from  Dineen's  own  personal  bank-account  a  substantial  advance 
on  the  expected  receipts  from  the  two  performances,  returned  East, 
and  sailed  away  for  Holland. 

But  an  intimate  friend  of  Penton  Baxter's,  before  he  left,  he 
related  to  me  many  fine  things  about  the  latter,  and  spoke  in  special 
admiration  of  his  wife,  Hildreth. 

•  •••••• 

I  rehearsed  and  rehearsed. 

I  fought  and  fought  with  the  directress,  a  teacher  of  elocution, 
who  tried  to  make  me  mouth  my  words  in  the  old  style. 

She  swore  that  she  would  get  rid  of  me  as  listral  (pronounced 
Eestral),  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  it  would  seriously 
embarrass  her  to  try  others  for  the  part,  the  time  of  production 
being  so  near. 

Dineen  upbraided  me  for  being  insubordinate.  .  . 

I  asked  Dineen  please  to  believe  in  me,  and  watch  results. 

My  idea  of  acting  was  to  go  into  the  part,  be  burned  alive  by 
it  .  .  to  recite  my  lines  naturally. 

I  was  proud  of  myself.  I  was  to  act  as  lead  in  a  play  by  a 
world-celebrated  author,  in  its  premier  American  production. 


322  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

The  story  of  it  was  that  of  a  young  poet-student,  listral  .  . 
eccentric  .  .  a  sensitive  .  .  wlfb  had,  while  tutoring  the  children  of  a 
count,  fallen  in  love  with  the  countess,  his  wife  .  .  on  the  discovery 
of  the  liaison,  she  had  committed  suicide  in  a  lake  on  their  private 
grounds.   .   . 

The  play  opened  up  with  the  young  student,  listral,  come  back 
home,  after  the  wife's  death.  .  . 

The  tragedy  had  affected  him  strangely. 

He  wore  a  Hindoo  robe,  let  his  beard  grow  like  a  Yogi  .  .  was 
irritated  with  the  unimaginative,  self-seeking  smugness  of  the 
grown-ups. 

He  found  in  Lisel,  a  little  niece  of  his,  the  wise,  innocent,  illumi- 
nated imagination  of  childhood.  And  he  associated  with  her, 
teaching  her  the  mystic  meanings  of  flowers  in  the  garden. 

But  he  lived  for  one  thing  only — the  coming  of  the  voice  of 
Egeria,  as  he  called  the  spirit  of  the  dead  countess.  .  . 

Her  voice  came  to  him  continually  .  .  preluded  by  strains  of 
music  .  .  he  lived  from  day  to  day  with  her  lovely  speech,  a 
clairaudient. 

As  long  as  nothing  material  was  involved,  he  was  regarded  as 
merely  a  gentle  eccentric  .  .  by  his  relatives  and  the  bourgeoisie.   .   . 

But  as  soon  as  word  came  that  he  had  inherited  a  fortune„through 
the  death  of  a  rich  uncle  in  America — the  attitude  of  the  people 
around  him  changed.  His  relatives  began  intriguing  to  hafe  him 
declared  insane. 

But  the  village  burgomaster,  ordinarily  decent,  saw  through  their 
artifices.  .  . 

Goaded  and  goaded,  finally  listral  assailed  his  pestering  relatives 
with  a  shovel  with  which  he  was  working  among  the  gentle  flowers 
in  the  garden  .  .  at  his  customary  task  of  teiiding  them  with  Lisel  .  .  . 

And  now  the  burgomaster,  bribed,  had  reason  to  adjudge  him 
insane. 

And  listral  was  dragged  ofl",  wailing,  to  the  asylum. 

With  my  clothes  in  literal  rags  I  went  through  the  rehearsals, 
attended  classes,  kept  up  my  athletics.  .  . 

Often  I  woke  up  in  the  night,  crying  out,  with  tears  rolling 
down  my  cheeks,  the  lines  of  unhappy  listral  .  .  the  spirit-woman 
Egeria  grew  real  as  flesh  and  blood  to  me.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  323 


"Egeria!     Egeria! "  ^ 

I  woke,  time  and  again,  and  heard  my  own  voice,  like  the  voice  of 
another,  calling  her  name  in  the  dark. 


"You  mustn't  take  the  play  so  desperately  .  .  remember  it's  just  a 
play  .  .  you  rehearse  as  if  the  whole  thing  were  a  part  of  your  life." 

"Some  of  the  boys,"  I  replied,  "some  of  the  football  boys  lost 
ten  or  twelve  pounds  in  our  Thanksgiving  game  at  Kansas  City 
last  fall  .  .  why  do  you  rebuke  me  for  taking  art  and  beauty  as 
seriously  as  athletes  take  a  football  match?" 

Two  days  before  the  play,  as  I  was  walking  by  the  Bellman 
House,  I  saw  Jarvis  Alexander  Mackworth  standing  there,  come 
up  from  Osageville  for  a  regents'  conference.   .   . 

"Hello !"  the  dear,  good  man  called,  "you  heavenly  bum !  You 
starry  young  tramp !" 

His  eyes  were  twinkling  in  appreciative  merriment  over  his  quaint 
phraseology. 

"What  are  you  doing  in  Laurel,  Mr.  Mackworth?" 

I  naticed  that  he  did  not  wear  his  many-patched  trousers,  but 
was  weir  dressed.  .  . 

— "attending  a  regents'  meeting,  young  man, — where  I  suppose 
I'll  have  to  stand  Up  in  your  defence  again.   .   . 

"It's  a  good  thing  you  don't  run  after  the  women,  Gregory,  or 
your  case  would  be  entirely  lost." 

(Yet  Mackworth  didn't  know  of  the  dirty  trick  that  had  been 
played  on  me: 

One  of  the  boys  from  the  school,  running  wild  down  in  Kansas 
City,  had,  with  a  curious  sense  of  humour,  given  my  name  as  his  .  . 
to  the  "girls"  in  various  houses  of  prostitution.   .   . 

And  "do  you  know  Johnnie  Gregory?"  and  "when  is  Johnnie 
Gregory  coming  to  see  us  again?"  other  students  were  asked  who 
frequented  the  *'houses.") 

"And  what  are  you  up  to  now?"  asked  Mackworth. 

-^—"acting  .  .  in  Van  Maarden's  listral  .  .  leading  role!" 

**You  look  skinnier  than  ever !" 

"I  am  taking  the  part  seriously,  and  it's  bringing  me  down.  I 
like  to  do  real  things  when  I  get  a  chance,  Mr.  Mackworth  .  .  and 


324.  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  am  going  to  make  the  two  performances  of  listral  memorable 
ones." 

"You  need  a  new  suit  of  clothes  very  badly." 

"I  know  I  do.    But  I  have  no  money,  and  no  credit." 

"We'll  see  about  that,  my  young  Villon." 

Mackworth  took  me  to  one  side  and  thrust  a  fifty-dollar  bill 
into  my  hand. 

I  hurried  down  to  Locker,  the  clothier.  .  . 

In  a  very  little  while  I  was  again  walking  by  the  Bellman  House, 
completely  togged  out  in  new  apparel  from  head  to  heel. 

Mackworth  was  still  standing  there,  and  he  laughed  with  aston- 
ishment at  the  lightning-quick  change  in  my  appearance.  .  . 

"You're  a  card,  Gregory!" 

He  afterward  repeated  the  story  with  gusto.  .  . 

The  day  before  the  night  of  our  first  performance  at  the  Bowersby 
Opera  House,  Jack  Travers,  always  turning  up,  came  to  me  with 
a  smile  of  faint  sarcasm  on  his  face 

"How's  the  great  actor,  eh.''" 

"Don't  be  an  ass.  Jack !" 

"I've  got  a  good  proposition  to  make  for  advertising  the  show 
— and  there'll  be  a  lot  of  fun  in  it,  too.  .  . 

"Suppose  we  kidnap  you,  take  you  out  somewhere  in  the  country 
— then,  after  a  day  or  so — find  you  bound,  in  a  farm  house.  .  . 

"Of  course  it  would  compel  them  to  put  off  the  performances  for 
a  few  days  .  .  but  look  at  the  excitement ;  and  the  stories  in  the 
papers ! .  .  afterwards  you  could  go  on  tour  through  all  the  principal 
cities  of  Kansas." 

The  idea  fascinated  me,  in  spite  of  myself.  .  . 

"But  how  about  Dineen?     He'd  go  nearly  crazy!" 

"There's  where  a  lot  of  the  fun  would  come  in.  And  to  see  the 
way  Gertie  Black,  the  elocution  teacher,  would  carry  on !  .  ." 

But  after  a  long  pause  of  temptation  I  shook  my  head  in  negation 
of  the  suggestion.   .   . 

It  would  be  a  lark,  but  I  had  pledged  Dineen  that  I  would  give 
him  no  more  trouble  with  my  vagaries.  .  . 

And,  besides,  I  didn't  trust  Jack  Travers — once  they  had  me  in 
their  power,  he  and  his  kidnappers  might  hide  me  away  for  several 
weeks  .  .  to  "bust  up"  the  play  entirely;  would,  I  wisely  reflected, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  325 

be,   to   Travers,   even   a   greater  joke   than   merely   to   delay   its 
production. 

And  I  wanted  this  time  to  show  my  enemies  that  I  could  be 
depended  on  in  affairs  of  moment.  .  . 

We  had  to  have  recourse  to  Kansas  City  for  our  costumes.  And 
we  were  more  fortunate  in  them  than  the  cast  of  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer  had  been  the  year  before  .  . 

Costumes  had  then  been  rented  for  them  which  left  the  children 
mysteriously  itching,  driven  to  the  inexplicable  necessity  of  scratch- 
ing in  embarrassing  localities.   .   . 

The  poor  girls  especially  were  terror-stricken  .  .  and  many  of 
the  boys  were  too  innocent  to  conjecture  what  was  the  matter  .  . 
at  first  they  thought  that  the  rented  costumes  had  imparted  some 
obscure  skin  disease  to  the  entire  company  .  .  and  word  was 
conveyed  to  the  costuming  firm  that  they  were  to  be  sued.  .  . 

But  when  it  was  discovered  that  an  indecent  sort  of  vermin  was 
the  cause,  the  case  was  dropped.   .   . 

Suit  could  not  be  conducted  on  such  grounds.   .  . 

But  the  joke  was  passed  around  and  caused  considerable  merri- 
ment among  the  wise  ones. 

The  only  thing  I  allowed  the  elocution  teacher  and  directress  to 
do  was  to  put  on  my  make-up  for  me  .  .  including  the  sticking  to 
my  face  of  a  close  Van  Dyke  beard.  .  . 

I  refused  to  avail  myself  of  her  instruction  for  acting,  as  I 
perceived  that  was  all  bosh.  .  . 

The  curtain  went  up,  I  sitting  there,  the  orchestra  softly  breathing 
Massenet's  Elegy — meant  to  be  the  music  sent  from  the  spirit 
world,  the  melody  that  I,  listral,  heard,  whenever  my  dead  mistress 
was  present.  .  . 

The  orchestra  finished  the  melody.  It  stopped  and  left  the 
house  in  expectancy. 

A  mistake  had  been  made  on  the  entrance-cue  of  little  Lisel,  my 
child-nephew. 

There  I  sat,  in  my  strange  robe,  like  a  bath-robe,  with  stars  cast 
over  it,  waiting. 

I  knew  something  had  gone  wrong. 


326  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Several  girls  (of  course  everyone  in  the  audience  knew  me)  began 
to  titter  at  my  strange  appearance,  in  my  apotheosised  bathrobe,  in 
my  close  Van  Dyke  beard.  .  . 

I  knew  inwardly  that  in  a  moment  all  the  house  would  be  laughing 
.  .  at  first  out  of  sheer  nervousness  over  the  delay  in  the  progress 
of  the  play — then  from  genuine  amusement.  .  . 

I  threw  my  will,  my  entire  spirit,  against  the  incoming  tide  of 
ridicule  which  would  wreck  the  play  even  with  the  rising  orf  the 
curtain. 

I  pictured  to  myself  the  beautiful  woman  who  had  drowned 
herself;  I  burned  with  her  unhappiness  .  .  I  felt  her  hovering  near 
me  .  .  I  thought  of  the  lovely  passion  we  had  known  together  .  .  I 
was  listral. 

I  was  not  on  a  stage,  but  in  a  room,  holding  actual  and  rapt 
communion  with  my  spirit-bride,  Egeria !  .   . 

"Egeria !  Egeria !"  I  sobbed  .  .  and  tears  streamed  down  my  face. 

I  was  miserable,  without  her,  in  the  flesh  .  .  though  she  was  there, 
beside  me,  in  soul! 

I  was  aware  of  the  audience  again.  I  was  proud  and  strong  in 
my  confidence  now.  The  tittering  had  stopped.  The  house  was 
filling  with  awe.  I  was  pushing  something  back,  back,  back — over 
the  footlights.  I  did  not  stop  pushing  till  it  had  reached  the  topmost 
galleries.   .  . 

I  had  them.  .  . 

The  applause  after  the  first  act  was  wonderful. 

"Great !  You're  great  .  .  you've  vindicated  my  belief  in  you 
entirely !"  Dineen  was  shouting,  as  he  clapped  me  on  the  back,  beside 
himself. 

"Oh,  I  knew  I'd  do  it!  -.  .  I  want  a  drink!" 

"Here's  some  grape  juice!"  Gertie  Black  hold  out  a  glass  to 
me.  .  . 

"No,  I  won't  drink  that  stuff,"  I  replied,  with  all  the  petulance 
and  ill-humour  traditionally  allowed  a  star. 

A  Sig-Kapp,  whom  I  had  got  into  the  play  as  a  supe,  slipped  me 
a  drink  of  real  booze.  .  . 

I  had  to  run  to  the  toilet  three  times  before  the  second  act,  I 
was  so  nervous  and  excited. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  327 

**For  God's  sake,  keep  it  up !"  urged  DIneen. 

"For  Christ's  sake,  let  me  alone,  all  of  you, — I  know  what  I'm 
doing,"  this,  as  the  elocution  teacher  tried  to  press  home  some 
advice.  .  . 

During  the  second  act  I  was  as  electric  as  during  the  first,  but 
now  I  allowed  myself  to  see  over  the  foot-lights  and  recognise  people 
I  knew.  I  even  overheard  one  girl  say  to  another,  "why,  Johnnie 
Gregory  is  handsome  in  that  Van  Dyke !" 

"Yes,  he  has  a  fine  profile  .  .  he  looks  quite  distinguished." 

Before  the  curtain  for  the  third  act,  Jack  Travers  worked  his 
way  back  through  the  props  to  my  dressing  room.  .  . 

"Sh !  I've  brought  a  nip  of  something  real  for  you,  Johnnie !" 

"Bill  already  has  given  me  some.  It's  enough!  I  don't  want 
any  more ! — ^wait  till  the  last  act,  and  then  I'll  take  it ! 

"I  don't  want  it  now!  Do  you  hear!"  I  almost  screamed,  as  he 
mischievously  insisted. 

The  bell  rang  for  the  third  curtain.  .  . 

The  news  had  come  for  listral  that  his  rich  uncle  in  America  had 
died  and  left  him  a  fortune  .  .  now  his  family  would  try  and  have 
him  adjudged  insane,  in  order  to  lay  hands  on  the  wealth  for  their 
own  uses.  .  . 

That  third  act  went  off  well.  .  . 

"But  you  skipped  a  few  lines  in  that  act,  Mr.  Gregory,"  warned 
the  directress,  concerned. 

"Oh,  let  me  alone,  will  you!"  I  returned,  enjoying  the  petulance  of 
stardom  to  the  full.  .  . 

"Remember  the  fight-scene  at  the  finish,"  she  persisted,"  just 
pretend  to  strike  with  the  shovel  .  .  you  might  hurt  someone!" 
anxiously. 

"I  am  going  to  act  the  thing  realistically,  not  as  a  matter  of  stage- 
craft." 

She  tiptoed  away.  And  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  her  in- 
struct the  boys  who  acted  as  guards,  and  who  were  to  seize  on  me — 
in  my  moment  of  physical  exasperation 

"Grab  him  before  the  cue,  just  a  trifle  before  it!  I  think  Mr. 
Gregory  is  going  to  forget  himself!" 


328  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  swung  the  shovel  high  in  the  air,  making  at  all  my  relatives, 
crying  out  terms  of  reproach  .  .  sobbing.  .  . 

In  the  audience,  everybody  sat  still  with  wonder. 

The  actors  scattered  from  my  brandished  shovel,  just  as  they 
would  have  done  in  real  life  .  .  the  directress  had  schooled  them  to 
crowd  about  me  so  as  to  mask  the  action. 

But  the  action  needed  no  masking.     It  was  real. 

The  two  guards  were  on  me, — boys  who,  in  everyday  life,  were 
big  football  men  on  the  freshman  team.  .  . 

I  fought  them,  frenzied,  back  and  forth  over  the  stage,  smashing 
down  the  pasteboard  hedge,  falling  .  .  getting  up  again.  .  . 

But,  though  the  scenery  went  down,  the  audience  did  not  laugh, 
but  sat  spellbound. 

I  was  finally  dragged  away  .  .  on  the  way  to  the  asylum,  half  my 
costume  torn  from  my  body  .  .  and  I  kept  crying  aloud  .  .  for 
mercy  .  .  for  deliverance  .  .  after  the  curtain  had  long  gone  down.  .  . 

"Big  Bill"  Heizer  gave  me  a  thump  in  the  ribs. 

*'For  God's  sake,  Mr.  Gregory"  (he  had  called  me  "Johnnie" 
always,  before)  "it's  only  play-acting  .  .  it's  not  real  .  .  quit  it  .  .  it 
gets  me." 

The  audience  went  wild  with  applause.  I  had  won  Laurel's  com- 
plete approbation — for  the  day,  as  I  had  won  Mt.  Hebron's,  that 
fall  Field  Day,  long  before! 

•  •••••• 

Travers  had  slipped  me  just  one  shot  of  whiskey  before  the  last 
act  went  on.  He  had  tried  to  persuade  me  to  drink  more.  He  was 
in  my  dressing  room.  .  . 

I  could  hardly  stand,  from  the  weakness  of  excitement  and 
exertion. 

After  the  play  was  over 

"Now  you  can  give  me  the  rest  of  the  bottle." 
"We'll  drink  it  together  .  .  to  your  success,  Gregory !" 
"Yes — you  devil!"  I  replied,  fond  of  him,  "you'd  have  had  me 
reeling  drunk,  that  last  act,  if  I  had  listened  to  you." 
And  I  gave  him  an  affectionate  clout  in  the  ribs. 

Again  the  professors  were  urging  me  to  become  more  "regular" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  329 

and  pointing  out  the  great  career  that  awaited  me — if  I  only  would 
work. 

There  was  some  subsequent  talk  of  sending  the  play  to  Osage- 
ville,  Topeka,  Kansas  City.  .  . 

But  the  faculty  opposed  it  .  .  it  would  not  be  proper  to  send  girls 
and  boys  out  together,  travelling  about  like  a  regular  theatrical 
company. 

As  it  had  been  said  that  I  was  going  to  take  up  the  career  of 
animal  trainer, — after  my  going  into  the  cage  with  the  lions — so 
it  was  now  pronounced,  and  reported  in  the  papers — Travers  saw 
to  that — that  I  meditated  a  career  as  a  professional  actor.  .  . 

Gleeful,  and  vastly  relieved,  Professor  Dineen  slipped  me  twenty- 
five  dollars  out  of  his  own  pocket. 

Several  fraternities  showed  indications  of  "rushing"  me,  after  my 
star  performance  .  .  but  my  associations  with  the  odd  characters 
about  town  and  the  wild,  ignorant  farmers  of  the  lower  type  that 
drove  in  each  Saturday  from  the  adjacent  country,  made  them,  at 
first,  hesitate  .  .  then  utterly  drop  the  idea.  .  . 

Broke,  I  now  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Jarvis  Alexander  Mackworth. 

I  boldly  complained  of  my  poverty,  inasmuch  as  it  deterred  me 
from  my  work. 

"I  have  now  proven  my  case,"  I  wrote  him, — "my  poems  have 
appeared  in  the  Century,  in  Everybody's,  in  Munsey's.  .  . 

"I  have  acted,  as  well,  as  a  professional  in  a  first-rate  play,  by  a 
great  European  dramatist  .  .  giving  Kansas  the  distinction  of  being 
the  first  to  produce  listral  on  the  American  stage.  .  . 

^^Now  I  want  to  finish  my  four-act  play  on  Judas.  To  do  so  I 
must  have  enough  to  eat  and  a  place  to  sleep,  without  being  made 
to  worry  about  it,  for  a  year.  .  . 

"Can't  you  help  me  to  a  millionaire?" 

Mackworth  answered  me  generously,  affectionately. 

In  two  weeks  he  had  procured  my  millionaire  .  .  Derek,  of  Chicago, 
the  bathtub  magnate  .  .  how  much  could  I  get  on  with.? 

I  wrote  that  I  could  do  with  seven  dollars  a  week.  .  . 

Mackworth  replied  not  to  be  a  fool — that  Derek  was  willing  to 
make  it  fifteen,  for  a  year's  duration.  .  . 


330  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  replied  that  I  could  only  take  enough  to  fill  my  simplest 
wants.  .  . 

Derek  jocosely  added  fifty  cents  to  the  sum  I  asked — "for  postage 
stamps" —  .  .  for  one  year,  week  In,  week  out,  without  a  letter 
from  me  except  those  indicating  changes  of  address,  without  sending 
me  a  word  of  advice,  criticism,  or  condemnation,  no  matter  what  I 
got  into  .  .  Derek  sent  me  that  weekly  stipend  of  seven  dollars  and 
fifty  cents !  .  .  . 

I  settled  down  to  consecutive  literary  work. 

Lyrics  I  could  write  under  any  condition.  They  came  to  me  so 
deeply  from  the  subconscious  that  at  times  they  almost  seemed  like 
spirit-control,  which,  at  times,  I  am  sure  they  had  been,  till  I  set 
the  force  of  my  will  against  them.  For  I  was  resolved  that  what  / 
wrote  should  be  an  emanation  from  my  own  personality,  not  from 
dead  and  gone  poets  who  used  me  for  a  medium. 

But  when  it  came  to  long  and  consecutive  effort,  the  continual 
petty  worry  of  actual  penury  sapped  my  mind  so  that  I  lacked  the 
power  of  application.  .  . 

With  Derek's  remittances  this  obstacle  was  removed.  .  . 

I  had  soon  completed  the  first  act  of  my  apostolic  play.  .  . 

And  then  I  plunged  into  a  scrape,  together  with  my  fellow  mem- 
bers of  the  press  or  "Scoop  Club,"  as  it  was  more  popularly  known, 
which  halted  my  work  mid-way.  .  . 

Our  common  adventure  derived  its  inception  from  a  casual  re- 
mark of  Jack  Travers',  at  one  of  our  meetings.  .  . 

Ever  since  Arthur  Brisbane  had  come  to  Laurel,  Jack  had  been 
on  his  toes.  .  . 

"Brisbane  brought  me  a  breath  of  what  it  must  mean  to  be  a  big 
newspaper  man  in  the  world  outside,"  said  Travers,  as  he  stretched 
and  yawned,  "why  don't  we,"  he  continued,  "start  something  to 
show  'em  we're  alive,  and  not  dead  like  so  many  of  the  intellects  on 
the  Hill!" 

" — s  all  right  to  talk  about  starting  something  .  .  that's  easy  to 
do.  The  hell  of  it  is,  to  stop  it,  after  you've  got  it  started," 
philosophised  "The  Colonel"  .  .  . 

"Just  what  is  it  that  you  propose  starting.'"'  asked  practical, 
pop-eyed  Tom  Jenkins. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  331 

"Oh,  anything  that  will  cause  excitement!"  waved  Travers, 
serenely. 

"If  you  boys  really  want  some  excitement  .  .  and  want  to  do  some 
service  for  the  community  at  the  same  time, — I've  got  a  scheme  to 
suggest  .  .  something  I've  been  thinking  over  for  a  long  time,"  sug- 
gested Jerome  Miller,  president  of  the  club.  .  . 

"Tell  us  what  it  is,  Jerome !" 

"The  Bottoms  .  .  you  know  how  rotten  it  is  down  there  .  .  nigger 
whorehouses  .  .  every  other  house  a  bootlegger's  joint  .  .  blind 
pigs  .  .  blind  tigers,  for  the  students.  .  . 

"We  might  show  up  the  whole  affair.  .  . 

" — how  the  city  administration  thrives  on  the  violation  of  the  law 
from  that  quarter  .  .  how  the  present  administration  depends  on 
crime  and  the  whiskey  elements  to  keep  it  in  power  by  their  vote.  .  . 

"That  would  be  starting  something!" 

"I  should  say  it  would!"  shouted  Jack  Travers,  ablaze  with  en- 
thusiasm. 

"Then  we  might  extend  operations,"  continued  the  masterful,  in- 
cisive Jerome,  "and  show  up  how  all  the  drug  stores  are  selling 
whiskey  by  the  gallon,  for  'medicinal'  purposes,  abusing  the  privilege 
of  the  law." 

"But  how  is  all  this  to  be  done.'"' 

"Through  the  Laurelian?" 

"No  .  .  I  have  a  better  plan  that  that  .  .  we  might  be  able  tS 
persuade  'Senator'  Blair  and  old  Sickert,  joint  editors  of  the 
Laurel  Globe,  to  let  the  Scoop  Club  run  their  paper  for  a  day — 
just  as  a  college  stunt!" 

"They'd  never  stand  for  it !"  I  averred,  innocently. 

"Of  course  they  wouldn't — if  we  let  them  in  on  what  we  were  up 
to ! — for  they  are  staunch  supporters  of  the  present  administration 
— but  they  won't  smell  a  rat  till  the  edition  is  off  the  press  .  .  and 
then  it  will  be  too  late  to  stop  it !" 

"In  other  words,"  laughed  Travers,  blowing  a  cloud  of  cigarette 
smoke  from  his  nose,  "they'll  think  they're  turning  over  their  paper, 
The  Globe,  to  a  bunch  of  boys  to  have  some  harmless  fun  .  .  a  few 
sophomoric  jokes  on  the  professors,  and  so  forth.  .  . 

"And  they'll  wake  up,  to  find  we've  slipped  a  real  man-size  sheet 
over  on  them,  for  the  first  time  in  local  history !" 


332  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

*'It'll  raise  hell  's  all  I've  got  to  say !"  sagely  commented  the  pre- 
maturely bald  "Colonel,"  his  eyes  glinting  merrily. 

"It'll  be  lots  of  fun,"  remarked  Travers,  characteristically,  "and 
I'm  for  it,  lock,  stock,  and  barrel." 

"That's  not  the  reason  I'm  for  it ;  I'm  for  it  for  two  reasons," 
reinforced  Jerome  Miller  magisterially,  "first,  because  it  will  put  the 
Scoop  Club  on  the  map  as  something  more  than  a  mere  college  boys' 
organisation;  secondly,  because  it  will  lead  to  civic  betterment,  if 
only  temporary — a  shaking  up  where  this  old  burg  needs  a  shaking 
up  .  .  right  at  the  court  house  and  in  the  police  station.  .  . 

*'But,  make  no  mistake  about  it, — it's  going  to  kick  up  a  big 
dust! 

"Also,  remember,  no  one  is  going  to  stand  by  us  .  .  even  the  Civic 
Betterment  League,  headed  by  Professor  Langworth — your  friend, 
Johnnie — will  be  angry  with  us — say  our  methods  are  too  sensa- 
tional. 

*'And  the  university  authorities  will  say  we  shouldn't  have  done 
it  because  it  will  give  the  school  a  black  eye  .  .  it  will  be  Ibsen's 
Enemy  of  Society  all  over  again !  .  .  ." 

Immediately  some  of  our  more  conservative  members  set  them- 
selves against  the  "clean  up"  .  .  but  Jack  Travers  and  I  delivered 
eloquent,  rousing  speeches.  And  the  decision  was  more  for  full  steam 
ahead. 

"Senator"  Blair  was  easily  deluded,  and  persuaded  to  turn  his 
paper  over  to  us,  for  one  day. 

Our  strong-featured,  energetic  president,  Jerome  Miller,  together 
with  the  suave,  plausible  Travers,  went  to  see  him,  deputation-wise, 
where  he  sat,  in  the  Laurel  Globe^s  editorial  office, — white  and  un- 
healthy-looking, a  great,  fat  slug  of  a  man,  with  the  slug's  nature, 
which  battens  on  the  corruption  of  earth. 

He  liked  the  idea  of  the  publicity  his  paper  would  get  through 
the  stunt  of  the  "boys."  He  did  not  guess  the  kind  of  publicity  he 
would  really  come  into. 

During  the  three  weeks  that  we  had  before  we  were  to  bring  out 
the  paper  we  grew  quite  proficient  in  the  tawdry  life  lived  in  the 
"Bottoms." 

We  found  out  that  most  of  the  ramshackle  "nigger"  dives  were 
owned  by  a  former  judge  .  .  from  which  he  derived  exorbitant  rents. 


f 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  333 

We  located  all  the  places  where  booze  was  sold,  and  ascertained 
exactly  how  much  whiskey  was  disposed  of  in  the  town's  drug  stores 
for  "snake  bite"  and  "stomach  trouble."  We  discovered  many  in- 
teresting things — that,  for  instance,  "Old  Aunt  Jennie,"  who  would 
allow  her  patrons  any  vice,  but  demurred  when  they  took  the  name 
of  "De  Lawd"  in  vain — "Old  Aunt  Jennie"  ran  a  "house"  where  the 
wilder  and  more  debauched  among  the  students  came  (in  justice  to 
Laurel  University,  let  me  add,  very  few)  girls  and  boys  together, — 
and  stayed  for  the  night — when  they  were  supposed  to  be  on  trips  to 
Kansas  City.  .  . 

Travers  and  "The  Colonel"  and  I  were  half-lit  for  two  weeks.  .  , 

That  was  the  only  way  to  collect  the  evidence. 

I  drank  but  sparingly,  as  I  loafed  about  the  joints  and  "houses." 

Jerome  Miller  did  not  drink  at  all  .  .  and  was  the  spirit  and  soul 
of  our  activities. 


"Senator"  Blair  came  out  with  a  humorous  editorial  the  night  be- 
fore we  were  to  take  the  day's  charge  of  his  paper. 

He  headed  his  editorial  "A  Youthful  Interim  .  .  Youth  Must  Be 
Served !" 

He  was  laying  down  his  pen,  he  wrote,  for  a  week-end  holiday  .  . 
he  had  dug  a  can  of  bait  and  would  go  fishing,  turning  all  the  care 
and  trouble  of  a  newspaper  over  to  youth  and  eagerness  .  .  would 
forgot  all  his  troubles  for  a  few  days.  .  . 

The  editorial  made  us  roar  with  laughter  .  .  Blair  didn't  know 
the  trouble  that  was  preparing  for  him. 

I  wrote  a  poem  for  the  Scoop  Club  Edition  of  the  Laurel  Globe.  .  . 

"The  Bottoms  now  I  sing,  where  whiskey  flows 
And  two-cent  makes  life  coleur  de  rose. 
Where  negro  shanties  line  the  sordid  way 
And  rounders  wake  by  night  who  sleep  by  day — " 


By  noon  of  the  day,  hints  of  what  was  coming  were  riding  the 
winds  of  general  report.  .  . 
Carefully  we  read  the  proofs. 


334  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

At  last  there  it  was — all  the  data,  statistics,  and  details  of  the 
town's  debauchery  and  corruption  .  .  damning,  in  cold  type,  the  ad- 
ministration, and  the  aquiescent  powers  in  the  university. 

We  ourselves  had  not  as  yet  begun  to  perceive  what  it  would  lead 
to — a  state-wide  scandal  that  would  echo  in  the  Chicago,  San  Fran- 
cisco and  New  York  newspapers,  and  result  in  severe  criticism  of 
the  university  faculty  for  remaining  blind  to  such  a  condition  of 
affairs  .  .  and  how  there  would  be  interrogations  in  the  Kansas 
Legislature  and  a  complete  shake-up  of  the  political  power  in  Laurel. 

News  of  the  forthcoming  expose  spread  mysteriously  in  "The 
Bottoms"  before  the  paper  was  off  the  press.  To  avoid  the  coming 
storm,  already  negro  malefactors  and  white,  were  "streaming"  as 
Travers  phrased  it,  "in  dark  clouds"  out  of  town,  for  brief  sojourns, 
beyond  reach  of  the  compelling  subpoena,  in  Kansas  City,  Missouri. 

By  five  o'clock  the  edition,  an  extra  large  one,  had  been  almost 
exhausted,  and  people  were  lining  up  at  the  newspaper  office,  paying 
five  cents  a  copy.  .  . 

"Senator"  Blair  rushed  back,  having  heard  of  what  he  called  our 
"treachery"  and  abuse  of  his  confidence,  over  telephone.  .  . 

He  looked  sick  and  worried,  as  if  he  had  run  in  all  the  way  from 
the  little  lake,  five  miles  from  town,  where  he  had  gone  for  his  week- 
end of  idyllic,  peaceful  fishing,  .  . 

"You've  ruined  me,  you  boys  have!"  he  almost  sobbed,  collapsing 
fatly  in  his  chair,  then  he  flamed,  "by  God,  I'll  have  you  each  in- 
vestigated personally  and  clapped  in  jail,"  .  .  which  threat,  however, 
he  did  not  even  try  to  carry  through.  .  . 

Instead,  his  paper,  and  the  other  two  town  papers,  tried  to  turn 
off  the  affair  as  a  mere  college  joke,  played  on  a  whole  com- 
munity. .  . 

But  we  had  expected  just  such  action — rather  the  executive  genius 
of  Jerome  had  expected  it — for  which  reason  we  had  confronted  the 
readers  of  the  Globe  with  damning  facts  and  statistics,  carefully 
gathered,  which  presented  an  insurmountable  barrier  to  evasion. 

And  as  we  also  had  expected,  the  Civic  Betterment  League  was 
also  dead  against  us.  .  . 

"Why,"  cried  Langworth  to  me,  "why  didn't  you  bring  all  the 
evidence  to  us,  and  let  us  proceed  calmly  and  soberly  with  the  case?'* 

"Professor  Langworth,  you  are  a  friend  of  mine,  and  a  very  good 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  335 

one — ^but  you  know  very  well  that  the  conditions  exposed  you  people 
knew  of  all  along  .  .  and  for  years  you  have  dallied  along  without 
acting  on  it." 

"We  were  biding  the  proper  time !" 

"The  reason  you  never  started  something  was  your  fear  of  in- 
volving the  university  in  the  publicity  that  was  sure  to  follow !  .  .  " 

Langworth  was  a  good  man,  but  he  knew  I  had  him.  He  hemmed 
and  hawed,  then  covered  his  retreat  in  half-hearted  anger  at  me.  .  . 

"You  know  well  enough,  Johnnie  Gregory,  that  all  you  boys  did 
it  for  was  to  *pull  a  stunt' — indulge  in  a  little  youthful  horse- 
play." 

"Granted — but  we  have  effected  results !" 

"What  results.''  merely  a  lot  of  trouble  for  everybody!" 

"The  Civic  Betterment  League  now  has  a  chance  afforded  it  to 

make  good  .  .  we've  provided  you  with  the  indisputable  data,  the 

evidence  .  .  it's  up  to  you,  now,  to  go  ahead." 

*'So  God  help  me,  Johnnie,  sometimes  you  make  me  wish  I  had 

never  sponsored  you  here." 

The  editor  of  the  Globe  made  a  right-about-face-repudiating  us. 

Jack  Travers,  in  the  style  of  his  beloved  Brisbane,  put  an  edi- 
torial in  the  school  paper,  the  Laurelian,  addressed  to  Blair,  be- 
ginning, "Get  back  into  the  collar  of  your  masters,  you  contemptible 
cur." 

The  usual  thing  took  place.  Most  of  the  worst  criminals  were 
mysteriously  given  ample  time  to  make  their  get-away  .  .  probably 
aided  in  it.  The  humorous  side  of  the  resulting  investigation  and 
trials  of  various  minor  malefactors  were  played  up  almost  ex- 
clusively. 

Little  by  little  the  town  dropped  back  to  its  outward  observance 
of  not  seeing  in  its  civic  life  what  it  did  not  care  to  see,  and  which 
no  one  could  radically  remedy  till  human  nature  is  itself  different. 

The  school  year  was  drawing  to  a  close,  my  last  year  at  Laurel. 

Professor  Black,  of  the  English  department,  had  assured  me  that, 
if  I  would  tone  down  a  bit,  I  could  easily  win  a  scholarship  in  his 
department,  and,  later,  an  assistant  professorship. 


336  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

But  I  preferred  my  rambling,  haphazard  course  of  life,  which  was 
less  comfortable,  but  better  for  the  freedom  of  mind  and  spirit  that 
poets  must  preserve.  .  . 

Dr.  Hammond,  when  I  had  given  him  that  luncheon  on  the  bor- 
rowed money,  had  taken  me  aside  and  informed  me  that  one  of  the 
professors — an  influential  man  on  the  Hill  (beyond  that,  he  refused 
to  identify  him  further)  had  advised  him,  Hammond,  not  to  accept 
the  luncheon  in  his  honour.   .   . 

"We  don't  approve  generally  of  Gregory,  on  the  Hill,  you 
know.  .  .  " 

And  Hammond  had,  he  told  me,  replied 

"I'm  sorry,  but  Mr.  Gregory  is  my  friend,  and  Dr.  Ward,  our 
literary  editor,  looks  on  him  as  a  distinguished  contributor  to  the 
Independent,  and  a  young  writer  of  great  and  growing  promise"  .  . 
so  the  luncheon  was  given  .  .  I  wonder  if  the  protesting  professor 
was  one  of  those  invited,  and  if  so,  if  he  attended?  .  . 

I  saw  clearly  that  I  could  never  fit  into  the  formal,  academic  life 
of  the  college — where  professors  were  ashamed  to  be  seen  carrying 
packages  and  bags  home  from  the  stores,  but  must  have  them  de- 
livered .  .  for  fear  of  losing  their  social  status ! 

There  was  a  park  on  the  outskirts  of  town  where  I  loved  to  loaf, 
when  the  weather  was  sunny, — a  place  where  the  blue  jays  fought 
with  the  squirrels  and  the  leaves  flickered  in  the  sun  .  .  sometimes 
I  lay  on  the  grass,  reading  .  .  sometimes  I  lounged  on  a  bench  .  .  I 
read  my  Greek  and  Latin  poets  there  .  .  and  my  English  and  German 
poets  .  .  and,  when  hungry,  I  sauntered  home  to  my  bread  and 
cheese,  or,  now  that  I  was  in  receipt  of  Derek's  weekly  stipend,  to 
a  frugal  meal  at  some  lunch  counter.  I  dearly  liked  rib-ends  of 
beef.  .  . 

One  day,  when  I  was  in  my  park,  lying  on  my  belly,  reading 
Josephus,  I  was  aware  of  the  deputy  sherifl",  Small,  whom  I  knew, 
standing  over  me.  .  . 

"Oh,  it's  you,  Gregory !" 

"Yes,  what's  the  matter.  Deputy  Small?  what  do  you  want?" 

"People  who  drove  in  from  the  country  complained  about  your 
lying  here." 

"Complained  about  my  lying  here?  what  the  hell!  ,    .  look'e  here, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  337 

tTim  Small,  there's  no  ordinance  to  prevent  me  from  lying  on  the 
grass." 

**Well,  Johnnie,  you  either  got  to  git  up  and  sit,  proper,  on  a 
bench,  or  I'll  have  to  pull  you  in,  much  as  I  dislike  to  do  it." 

"Jim,  you  just  *pull'  ahead,  if  you  think  you're  lucky  .  .  it'll  be 
a  fine  thing  for  me  .  .  I'll  sue  the  city  for  false  arrest." 

Deputy  Small  was  puzzled.  He  pushed  his  hat  back  and  scratched 
his  head.  .  . 

"Jim,  who  put  you  up  to  this.''" 

"The  people  what  saw  you  lying  here,  as  they  drove  in,  stopped 
off  at  the  office  of  the  Globe  .  .  it  was  'Senator'  Blair  telephoned 
the  courthouse " 

"Blair,  eh?  .  .  trying  to  get  even  for  what  we  boys  did  with  his 
dirty  paper  .  .  he  knows  I  like  to  lie  out  here  and  read  my  books  of 
poetry !" 

I  was  thoroughly  aroused.     I  jumped  to  my  feet. 

"Jim,  do  me  a  favour,  and  arrest  me  .  .  and  I'll  sue  you,  the  city 
of  Laurel,  and  'Senator'  Blair  .  .  all  three  of  you !" 

" — guess  I  won't  do  it  .  .  but  do  sit  on  the  bench  .  .  I  ask  it  as  a 
personal  favour,  Johnnie." 

"As  a  personal  favour,  Jim,  till  you  are  out  of  sight.  Then  I'll 
go  back  to  the  grass." 

That  night  Blair,  cocksure,  had  the  story  of  my  arrest  in  the 
paper.     But,  as  it  happened,  he  was  too  previous.  .  . 

Jerome  Miller  and  Jack  Travers  joined  me  in  going  to  the  office 
of  the  Globe,  the  next  morning.  .  . 

After  we  had  finished  telling  him  what  we  thought  of  him,  the 
"Senator"  begged  my  pardon  profusely,  and  the  next  day  a  retrac- 
tion was  printed.  .  . 

And  now  school  was  over  at  Laurel. 

And  I  determined  to  bum  my  way  to  New  York,  and,  from  there, 
ship  on  a  cattleboat  to  Europe.  Where  I  would  finish  writing  my 
play,  Judas. 

Farewell  to  Laurel  i 

I  went  up  to  the  athletic  field  and  ran  my  last  two  miles  on  its 
track,  at  top  speed,  as  good-bye  to  its  cinders  forever ! 

I  walked,  with  a  guilty  feeling  of  too  much  sentimentality,  back 
into  the  "stack"  at  the  university  library.     I  took  down  book  after 


i 


338  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

book  of  the  great  English  poets,  and  pressed  my  cheeTc  to  them  in 
long  farewell  .  .  first  glancing  cautiously  around,  to  be  sure  that 
no  one  was  near  to  observe  my  actions.  .  . 

I  did  not   say  good-bye  to  Langworth  or  my   other  professor 
friends,  as  they  had  already  left  for  their  summer  vacations. 


1  sat  in  Joe  Deacon's  room,  talking,  that  last  night  of  my  sojourn 
in  Laurel.  .  . 

"Good  old  Joe"  we  called  him,  because  he  was  possessed  of  all  the 
old-fashioned  virtues,  and  unassumingly  lived  up  to  them.  He  was 
a  fellow  member  of  the  Scoop  Club,  an  associate  teacher  in  the 
School  of  Journalism,  and  taught  during  the  summer  session.  .  . 

Long,  long  Joe  and  I  talked  .  .  of  everything  young  idealists  dis- 
cuss or  dream  of.  We  ended  with  a  discussion  of  the  sex  question. 
I  reiterated  what  he  already  had  heard  me  say,  that  I  had  had  so 
far  no  sex  experience.  He  confessed  that  he,  also,  had  had  none  .  . 
maintained  that  a  decent  man  should  wait,  if  he  expected  a  woman 
to  come  pure  to  him.  .  . 

I  spoke  ardently  in  favour  of  free  love. 

He  assented  that,  theoretically,  it  was  the  thing  .  .  but  there  were 
a  multitude  of  practical  difficulties  that  made  for  favour  of  the 
convention  of  marriage.  .  . 

"No,  if  a  convention  is  wrong,  it  is  the  duty  of  everyone  who 
knows  the  right  in  his  heart,  to  help  smash  that  convention.  .  .  '* 

"You  just  wait,"  I  boasted  imaginatively,  "and  I'll  show  you!" 
"Maybe,  Joe,"  I  concluded,  for  I  knew  what  I  said  would  tease  him, 
*'maybe,  when  I  reach  the  East,  I  shall  break  loose."  Then  I  added 
— and  to  this  day  I  cannot  imagine  what  put  it  into  my  head  to  say 
it — what  fantastic  curl  of  thought,  unless  perhaps  a  premonition  of 
what  was  soon  to  come  to  pass 

"Penton  Baxter  has  invited  me  to  pay  him  a  visit  at  Eden,  a 
Single  Tax  Colony  just  outside  of  Philadelphia,  before  I  go  on  to 
Europe  via  cattleboat  .  .  maybe  I'll  take  him  up,  go  down  there,  and 
run  away  with  his  wife  .  .  she's  a  mighty  pretty  woman,  Joe !" 

Joe  was  scandalised  at  my  remark — the  effect  I  had  wished  for. 


But  after  the  uproar  broke,  Joe  stoutly  maintained  that  our 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  339 

elopement  had  all  been  a  frame-up,  alleging  his  conversation  with 
me  as  proof  .  .  as  who  would  have  not? 

Reduced  again  to  my  barest  equipment,  and  having  left  as  my 
forwarding  address  the  office  of  the  National  Magazine,  in  New 
York,  I  hopped  a  freight  shortly  after  dawn.  It  was  a  fast,  through 
freight.  Because  of  lack  of  practice  I  boarded  it  clumsily,  and 
almost  went  to  my  death  under  its  grinding,  roaring  wheels,  there 
in  the  Laurel  freight-yards.  I  sat,  trembling  with  the  shock  to  my 
nerves,  on  the  bumpers. 

I  hopped  off  at  Argentine,  just  outside  of  Kansas  City. 

I  found  a  camp  of  tramps  and  joined  with  them.  We  drank 
coffee  together.  .  . 

But,  somehow,  the  scales  had  fallen  from  my  eyes.  My  old  ideal- 
isation of  the  life  of  the  tramp,  somehow  or  other,  was  entirely 
gone — an  idealisation  that  had,  anyhow,  been  mainly  literary,  in- 
duced by  the  writings  of  Jack  London,  Josiah  Flynt  and  Maxim 
Gorky. 

Now,  as  I  listened  to  their  filthy  talk  .  .  their  continual  "  'Jesus- 
Christ'-ing"  over  everything  they  said,  I  grew  sick  of  them.  I  got 
up  and  walked  away  stiffly — never  again  to  be  a  tramp. 

The  reporter  of  the  Star,  who  covered  the  stockyards,  took  me 
to  a  little  sturdy  cattle  merchant,  who  agreed  to  ship  me  to  New 
York,  in  care  of  five  carloads  of  calves  .  .  for  a  fee  of  ten  dollars. 
I  persuaded  him  that  I  would  mail  him  that  ten  on  arrival  at  my 
point  of  destination  .  .  I  have  never  done  so  .  .  when  I  had  it,  I 
needed  it  more  for  myself  .  .  and,  anyhow,  I  earned  that  ten. 

My  duties  with  the  calves  were  not  many  .  .  merely  to  walk  along 
the  sides  of  the  five  cars  in  my  keeping,  and  see  that  the  calves 
kept  on  their  legs  and  did  not  sprawl  over  each  other  .  .  some- 
times one  of  them  would  get  crushed  against  the  side  of  the  car, 
and  his  leg  would  protrude  through  the  slats.  And  I  would  push 
his  leg  back,  to  keep  it  from  being  broken  .  .  I  made  my  rounds 
every  time  the  freight  came  to  a  halt. 

There  were  other  cars,  filled  with  steers,  sheep,  and  pigs. 

Each  kind  of  animal  behaved  according  to  its  nature,  during  the 
trip.  The  steers  soon  accepted  their  cramped,  moving  life  rather 
stolidly.     The  calves  acted  as  if  dumbfounded,  in  stupefied,  wide- 


340  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

eyed  innocence  .  .  the  sheep  huddled  as  sheep  do  .  .  but  the  big  fat 
porkers  were  the  most  intelligent  .  .  like  intelligent  cowards  that 
fully  know  their  fate,  they  piled  in  heaping,  screaming,  frenzied 
masses  .  .  in  scrambling  heaps  in  the  centre  of  their  cars  .  .  suffocat- 
ing, stinking,  struggling  closer  and  closer  together  and  leaving 
great,  bare  areas  unoccupied  on  either  end.  .  . 

"A  pig  has  no  sense  in  a  car  .  .  or  anywhere." 

"Seems  to  me  they  have  .  .  they  act  as  if  they  know  what  they're 
in  for,  at  the  other  end  of  the  line." 

*'By  golly,  that's  true!     I  never  thought  of  it  that  way  before!" 

So  conversed  the  head  brakeman  and  I. 

My  calves  soon  grew  to  know  me.  They  bleated,  in  a  friendly  man- 
ner, as  I  walked  by,  overseeing  them,  when  the  freight  stopped. 

•  •••••• 

We  had  bumped  along  as  far  as  Buffalo.  There  the  stock  were 
driven  down  an  incline  into  yards  fenced  in  with  white-washed 
boards,  for  their  second  rest,  required  by  law, — before  launching  on 
the  last  leg  of  their  journey  down  the  middle  of  New  York  State, 
and  along  the  Hudson  .  .  consigned  to  Stern  and  Company  of  New 
York.  .  . 

Some  of  them  were  to  be  butchered  there  and  afford  apartment- 
dwellers  lamb  stew,  tenderloins,  and  pork  chops  .  .  others  to  be  driven 
aboard  cattleboats,  for  Europe.  .  . 

At  Buffalo  I  was  ripe  for  a  change.  Also  I  wished  to  pick  up 
threads  of  former  experiences  and  acquaintanceships  .  .  to  have  a 
good  gossip  about  the  Eos  Art  Community  .  .  I  called  up  Laston 
Meunier  who  had  been  at  Eos  and  whom  I  had  first  met  there  .  .  who 
loved  bohemian  ways,  and  welcomed  wandering  artistic  and  literary 
folk  at  his  home  in  Buffalo. 

*'Where  are  you  now?"  Laston  asked,  over  the  phone. 

"I'm  calling  you  from  the  stockyards,"  and  I  told  him  what  I 
was  doing.  .  . 

*'Come  on  up  to  my  house,  and  forget  your  five  carloads  of 
calves  .  .  they  can  weather  through  the  last  jump,  to  New  York, 
alone  .  .  what  does  it  matter.''  .  .  they're  going  to  be  butchered  in  a 
few  days." 

Looking  about  this  way  and  that,  to  make  sure  I  was  unseen,  I 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  341 

took  my  grip  in  my  hand,  hopped  aboard  a  street  car  outside  the 
stockyards,  and  abandoned  my  calves  to  their  destiny. 

Meunier  welcomed  me.  He  invited  me  to  stay  at  his  house  for 
several  weeks.  His  pretty,  young  wife,  smiling  whimsically,  showed 
me  to  a  room  she  had  already  set  in  dainty  order  for  me. 

Meunier  had  gone  to  his  office.  .  . 

Nichi  Swartzman,  the  tall  Japanese  genius,  showed  up,  and  Bella 
Meunier,  Nichi,  and  I  ate  breakfast  together. 

Swartzman  was,  and  is,  a  magnificent  talker  .  .  a  torch  of  inspira- 
tion burned  brightly  in  his  brain,  with  continual  conversational  fire. 

But  he  must  have  his  drink.  Several  of  them.  Which  Laston's 
wife  poured  for  him  abundantly. 

After  breakfast  I  sprawled  on  the  floor  .  .  I  always  sprawl  on 
floors  instead  of  sitting  in  chairs.  .  . 

Swartzman  and  Bella  Meunier  and  I  talked  and  talked  and 
talked  .  .  of  Poe  .  .  of  Baudelaire,  of  Balzac.  .  . 

Then  Nichi  launched  forth  on  a  long  disquisition  on  Japanese 
and  Chinese  art,  and  Mrs.  Meunier  and  I  gladly  remained  silent 
during  the  whole  morning,  enchanted  by  the  vistas  of  beauty  which 
Swartzman's  words  opened  for  us. 

"Why,"  I  thought,  "must  such  a  man  lack  audiences  ?  If  civilisa- 
tion were  in  its  right  mind,  he  would  hold  a  chair  in  some  great 
university,  and  lecture  daily  to  hundreds  ,  .  this  man  is  alive.  His 
fire  wakes  kindred  fire  .  .  why  must  we  leave  the  business  of  teaching 
to  the  corpse-minded,  the  dead-hearted?  like  so  many  of  our  profes- 
sors and  teachers !" 

I  found  out  afterward  that  Nichi  Swartzman  was  utterly  irre- 
sponsible as  he  was  brilliant. 

Laston  Meunier  dug  up  poor  old  Fritz  Von  Hammer,  the  former 
Eos  pianist — whose  breath  was  still  as  fetid  as  ever  .  .  who  still  in- 
sisted on  seizing  you  by  the  coat  lapel  and  talking  right  into  your 
nose — dug  him  up  from  the  moving  picture  house,  where  he  played. 

Von  Hammer  wept  over  the  piano,  as  he  found  himself  free  again 
to  play  as  he  wished.  .  . 

The  party  was  in  my  honour.  There  were  present  about  a  dozen 
guests,  picked  from  Buffalo's  bohemia.  They  sat  about  on  the 
floor  on  cushions. 


342  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Swartzman  recited  Poe's  Black  Cat,  with  gestures  and  facial  con- 
tortions that  were  terrifying.  His  huge,  yellow,  angular  Japanese 
face  grimacing  near  the  ceiling  .  .  he  was  six  foot  six,  if  anything.  .  . 

His  recitation  was  done  so  well  that,  when  he  had  finished,  we  sat, 
for  a  moment,  in  frightened  silence,  like  children.  Then  we  stormed 
him  with  applause. 

"Now  play  the  Danse  Macabre,"  cried  Nichi,  to  Von  Hammer.  .  . 

"I  can't  do  it  without  a  violin  accompaniment." 

"Try  it  for  me  .  .  and  I  shall  dance  the  Dance  of  Death  for 
you." 

Von  Hammer  said  he  would  do  his  best  .  .  after  much  persuasion 
and  a  few  more  drinks.  .  . 

And  Nichi  Swartzman  danced.  .  . 

We  saw,  though  we  did  not  know  it,  the  origin  of  modern  futurist 
dancing  there.  Nichi  danced  with  his  street  clothes  on  .  .  wearing 
his  hat,  in  ghoulish  rakishness,  tipped  down  over  his  eyes  .  .  inter- 
wreathing  his  cane  with  his  long,  skeletal,  twisting  legs  and  arms  .  . 
his  eyes  gleaming  cat-like  through  merest  slits.  .  . 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  were  all  drunk.  Before  we 
parted  we  joined  in  singing  shakily  but  enthusiastically  Down  in 
Bohemia  Land. 


Meunier,  fulfilling  his  promise  to  me,  paid  my  fare  to  New  York. 
I  soon  walked  into  the  office  of  the  National  Magazine. 

Clara  Martin  was  there,  and  Allsworth  Lephil,  the  managing 
editor,  and  his  assistant  Galusha  Siddon. 

As  I  sat  in  the  office,  they  gave  me  a  sort  of  impromptu  reception. 

Ray  Sanford  strolled  in,  as  fresh-complexioned  as  an  Englishman. 
He  was,  they  said,  preparing  a  series  of  articles  on  the  negro  prob- 
lem. And  I  met  a  little,  bustling,  sharp-eyed  man,  with  much  of  the 
feminine  about  him, — his  face  lifted  as  if  on  an  intuitive  intellectual 
scent.  .  .  Carruthers  Heflin  .  .  he  wore  a  close-cropped  salt-and- 
pepper  beard,  like  a  stage-doctor.  He  was  busy  with  a  series  of 
articles  to  be  entitled,  Babylons  of  To-day  .  .  exposing  the  cor- 
ruption of  our  modern  American  cities. 

I  spoke  to  them  of  my  projected  trip  to  Europe. 

"I  think  you're  foolish  to  run  off  to  Europe  just*  at  this  time  in 
your  life.     Now  is  the  time  you  should  establish  yourself  here.     Be- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  .    343 

sides,  Jarvis  Maclcworth  has  written  us  that  you're  writing  a  book 
while  Derek,  the  Chicago  millionaire,  stakes  you." 

"Yes,  that's  true.  But  couldn't  I  write  it  in  Europe  as  well  as 
here?" 

"You'd  find  too  many  distractions." 

"Where  would  you  go  first?"  asked  Clara  Martin. 

"Paris !" 

"That  would  be  absolutely  fatal  for  a  young  man  of  your  disposi- 
tion. You  need  to  sit  quiet  and  write  for  a  few  years  .  .  you've  been 
over  the  map  too  much  already." 

"Baxter  has  just  been  in  here  .  .  he's  writing  us  a  sensational 
novel  exposing  society.  He  spoke  to  me  about  you,"  Lephil  re- 
marked,— "said  he  wished  we'd  put  a  tag  on  you  and  ship  you  down 
to  his  Eden  colony." 

There  was  a  pause.  Miss  Martin  thoughtfully  tapped  her  fore- 
head with  a  pencil. 

"I  don't  think  it  would  be  good  for  Johnnie  to  go  down  to  Eden 
and  put  up  with  Penton,"  she  iAterjected,  "they're  too  much  alike." 

"Ally  Merton  is  in  New  York,"  Galusha  Siddon  informed  me. 
He's  working  on  the  Express.  He  wants  you  to  run  down  and  see 
him." 

•  •••••• 

Merton  had  come  to  New  York  the  year  before,  to  work  on  the 
Express.  Mackworth  had  gotten  him  the  job.  Ally  was  as 
meticulously  dressed  as  ever.  His  eyes  swept  me  from  head  to  foot, 
with  an  instinctive  glance  of  appraisal,  as  he  shook  hands. 

"Come  on  up  on  the  roof.  The  paper  wants  a  photo  of  you  .  . 
to  go  with  a  story  I'm  writing  about  you." 

I  rather  resented  all  my  friends'  way  of  talking  to  me,  as  if  I 
were  a  child  to  be  discussed,  ordered  about,  and  disposed  of.  But 
I  humoured  them  by  playing  up  to  their  patronising  spirit  .  .  even 
playing  horse  with  them  continually  on  the  sly,  and  having  lots  of 
fun  that  they  didn't  suspect. 

The  next  morning  I  was  in  the  office  of  the  Independent,  visiting 
with  the  literary  editor,  good  old  Dr.  William  Hayes  Ward.  He 
was  a  man  of  eighty  years  .  .  a  scholar  in  English  and  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics.  .  . 


34.41  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Once,  when  on  a  vacation  he  had  written  me  that,  as  pastime,  he 
had  read  the  whole  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  over  again.  In  the 
Greek,  of  course. 

His  abused  eyes  floated  uneasily  behind  a  double  pair  of  lenses  .  . 
a  dissenting  minister  .  .  of  the  old  school  .  .  he  seemed  to  me  far 
more  youthful,  more  invigorating,  than  any  of  my  other  more  youth- 
ful friends  in  the  literary  and  magazine  world. 

We  talked  and  talked  of  poetry.  He  brought  down  a  huge 
treatise  on  English  versification,  translated  from  some  German 
scholar's  life-research — to  prove  a  point  .  .  he  discussed  what  Sidney 
Lanier — whom  he  had  known — might  have  done  with  metrics,  had  he 
only  lived  longer.  .  . 

And  "no  .  .  no  .  .  take  my  advice,"  he  said,  "don't  go  down  to 
Eden."  There  was  something  so  vaguely  deprecatory  in  his  voice 
that  it  brought  from  me  the  question — "why  not.''  isn't  Penton 
Baxter  all  right?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  in  the  same  deprecatory  tone, — "he's  all  right  enough, 
alone — ^but,  together,  you'd  be  like  two  balloons  without  ballast.  He 
might  get  you,  or  you  might  get  him,  into  some  sort  of  mess." 

"Why  Dr.  Ward,  what  do  you  mean.'"' 

"Penton  is  always  protesting  about  something  or  other, — always 
starting  fantastic  schemes.  .  he's  just  finished  with  his  Parnassus 
Palace  experiment,  which  brought  him  a  lot  of  newspaper  notoriety 
.  .  which  is  to  me  distasteful,  extremely  distasteful  .  .  yet  Baxter," 
he  added  hastily,  *'is  a  real  force  .  .  he  can  think  of  more  original 
projects  in  a  given  space  of  time  than  anyone  else  I  know." 

"I  look  on  him  as  a  great  and  wonderful  man !" 

"Mark  my  word,  Mr.  Gregory,  you'll  find  yourself  in  some  sort  of 
mix-up  if  you  go  down  to  Eden  to  live  with  him.  You're  both  too 
mad  and  inflammable  to  be  in  the  same  neighbourhood." 

Using  all  his  powers  of  persuasion,  Dr.  William  Hayes  Ward 
tried  to  explain  to  me  how  I  owed  it  both  to  Mr.  Derek  and  Mr. 
Mackworth  to  finish  my  play. 

"Have  you  no  place  else  to  go  to,  beside  Eden?" 

"I  could  run  out  to  Perfection  City — and  camp  out  there." 

"Now  that's  a  good  idea  .  .  why  not  try  that?" 


"Johnnie,  had  your  lunch  yet?"  it  was  Dr.  Percival  Hammond, 


i 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  345 

the  managing  editor,  who  was  asking,  leaning  out  from  his  cubby- 
hole where  he  sat  before  his  desk. 

"No,  sir !" 

"Come  and  share  mine!" 

I  said  good-bye  to  Dr.  Ward  and  walked  down  the  corridor  to 
where  Hammond  sat.  He  looked  more  the  fashionable  club  man  than 
ever,  though  he  did  have  a  slight  sprinkling  of  dandruff  on  his  coat 
collar.  I  was  quick  to  notice  this,  as  I  had  been  quick  to  notice 
Miss  Martin's  few,  close-scizzored  hairs  on  her  fine,  thinking  face. 

Lunch ! 

But  I  was  not  to  be  taken  out  to  a  meal  in  a  restaurant,  as  anyone 
might  expect,  but  Hammond  sat  me  down  on  a  chair  by  his  side,  and 
he  handed  me  a  glass  of  buttermilk  and  a  few  compressed  oatmeal 
cakes. 

I  had  stayed  over  night  at  the  Phi-Mu  House,  at  Columbia,  with 
Ally.  I  had  stayed  up  nearly  all  night,  rather,  arguing,  in  behalf 
of  extreme  socialism,  with  the  boys  .  .  till  people,  hearing  our  voices 
through  the  open  windows,  had  actually  gathered  in  the  street 
without. 

"You're  utterly  mad,  but  we  like  you !"  said  one  of  the  boys. 

In  the  morning,  before  I  clutched  my  suitcase  in  my  hand  and 
started  for  Perfection  City,  Ally  showed  me  something  that  had  come 
in  the  morning  mail,  which  startled  me.  It  was  a  clipping  from  the 
Laurel  Globe  —  a  vilely  slanderous  article,  headed,  "Good 
Riddance."  .  . 

And  first  it  lied  that  I  had  run  away  from  my  "confederates"  of 
the  Scoop  Club,  leaving  them  to  bear  the  onus  of  the  investigation 
of  the  town's  morals  .  .  which  was,  of  course,  not  true  .  .  I  had 
made  a  special  point  of  going  to  the  sheriff  and  asking  him  if  I 
would  be  needed.  If  so,  I  would  defer  my  trip  East.  And  he  had 
replied  that  it  would  be  all  right  for  me  to  go.  .  . 

But  the  second  count — the  personal  part  of  the  story,  was  more 
atrocious  .  .  it  intimated  that  I  had,  during  my  sojourn  at  Laurel, 
been  an  undesirable  that  would  have  made  Villon  pale  with  envy  .  . 
an  habitue  of  the  Bottoms  .  .  that  I  had  been  sleeping  with  negro 
women  and  rolling  about  with  their  men,  drunk. 

I  was  so  furious  at  this  that  I  dropped  my  suitcase,  clenched  my 
hands,  and  swore  that  I  was  straightway  going  to  freight  it  back 


346  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

and  knock  all  his  teeth  down  "Senator's"  Blair's  throat  .  .  the  dirty 
sycophant !    The  lousy  bootlicker !  the  nasty,  putty-bodied  slug ! 

Once  more  Baxter  wrote  me,  urging  me  to  come  to  Eden.  He 
told  me  his  wife  would  welcome  me  .  .  and  jested  clumsily  that  his 
secretary  would  be  just  the  girl  to  marry  me  and  take  care  of  me.  .  . 

Jested?    I  did  not  know  the  man  yet  .  .  he  meant  it. 

Though  I  was  possessed  of  a  curious  premonitory  warning  that 
I  must  not  accept  his  invitation  and  was,  besides,  settled  in  a  hut 
by  the  lake  shore,  yet  I  was  tempted  to  go  to  Eden.   .   . 

For  one  thing,  Perfection  City  was  no  longer  the  place  of  ideals 
it  had  been  .  .  it  was  now  a  locality  where  the  poorer  bourgeoisie 
sent  their  wives  and  children,  for  an  inexpensive  summer  outing.  .    . 

Wavering  this  way  and  that,  I  sent  a  telegram  which  clinched 
the  matter. 

"Will  leave  for  Eden  to-morrow  morning.     John  Gregory." 

Not  far  from  the  little  suburban  station  to  which  I  had  changed, 
lay  the  Single  Tax  Colony  of  Eden.  When  I  dropped  off  the  train 
and  found  no  one  to  greet  me,  I  was  slightly  piqued.  Of  a  labourer 
in  a  nearby  field  I  inquired  the  way  to  Eden.  He  straightened  his 
back,  paused  in  his  work. 

He  gave  me  the  direction —  "and  there  by  the  roadside  you'll 
find  a  sort  of  wooden  archway  with  a  sign  over  it  .  .  you  step  in 
and  follow  the  path,  and  that  will  take  you  right  into  the  centre 
of  the  community.  But  what  do  want  to  go  to  Eden  for?  they're  all 
a  bunch  of  nuts  there!" 

"Maybe  I  might  be  a  nut,  too !" 

The  old  man  laughed. 

"Well,  good-bye  and  good  luck,  sonny." 

Soon  I  reached  the  gateway,  trailing  my  heavy  suitcase  .  .  heavy 
mostly  with  manuscripts.   .   . 

A  woodland  path  led  me  into  what  seemed,  and  was,  a  veritable 
forest;  boughs  interlaced  above,  with  glimpses  of  blue  sky  between. 
In  interspaces  of  trees  wild  flowers  grew.  Luxuriant  summer  was 
abroad. 

I  stepped  out  of  the  forest  straightway  into  the  community.  It 
was  in  a  beautiful  open  space  like  a  natural  meadow. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  347 

There  stood  the  houses  of  the  colonists — Single  Taxers,  Anar- 
chists, Socialists,  Communists, — folk  of  every  shade  of  radical 
opinion  .  .  who  here  strove  to  escape  the  galling  mockeries  of  civilisa- 
tion and  win  back  again  to  pastoral  simplicity. 

It  was  a  community  such  as  William  Morris  or  some  Guild  Social- 
ist of  a  medieval  turn  of  mind  might  have  conceived.  It  was  the 
Dream  of  John  Ball  visualised. 

"When  Adam  dolve  and  Eve  span 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ?" 

Toy  houses  picturesquely  set  under  trees  that  fringed  the  Com- 
mon .  .  houses  with  different,  quaint  colours  .  .  the  "green"  in  the 
centre  carefully  cropped  as  if  nibbled  by  sheep  .  .  well-kept  paths 
of  parti-coloured  stone,  as  if  each  pebble  had  been  placed  there  by 
hand.  .  . 

Everything  here  was  born  obviously  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  move- 
ment, a  movement  which  seeks  to  teach  that  each  shall  make  and 
build  for  himself  .  .  if  clumsily,  yet  uniquely  .  .  the  product  to  be 
something  at  least  individual  and  warm  from  the  maker's  personality. 

I  thought  of  Jusserand's  English  Wayfaring  Life  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  If  the  Canterbury  Pilgrims,  led  by  jolly  Harry  Bailey, 
their  host,  had  burst  out  from  the  woods,  on  horseback,  singing 
and  jesting,  I  should  not  have  considered  their  appearance  an 
anachronism.  .  . 

A  tousle-headed  girl-child  in  rompers  which  she  was  too  big  for, 
pointed  me  Baxter's  house,  the  largest  in  the  community. 

There  seemed  to  be  no  one  home  when  I  dropped  my  suitcase  on 
the  front  porch.   .   . 

I  knocked  vigorously.     No  one  came.     I  waited  a  long  while. 

"A  hell  of  a  way  to  welcome  me !"  I  meditated,  my  egotism  hurt. 

Again  I  knocked. 

*'Come  in !  do  come  in !"  a  gentle  voice  bade — it  was  Mrs.  Baxter's. 

I  pushed  the  door  open  and  stepped  in.  I  set  down  my  heavy 
suitcase  with  a  thump,  on  the  bare,  hardwood  floor  of  the  large 
room  in  which  I  found  myself — a  room  sparsely  furnished,  its 
walls  lined  with  books.  It  had  one  large  window,  under  and  along 
which  was  built  in,  a  long,  wide  shelf  made  into  a  sort  of  divan, 
promiscuous  with  cushions. 


348  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Propped  up  with  a  disordered  heap  of  these  cushions  sat  Mrs. 
Hildreth  Baxter,  in  blouse  and  bloomers;  she  was  reading. 

"Why,  Johnnie  Gregory!"  she  cried,  swinging  her  graceful,  slim 
legs  down,  and  rising,  coming  toward  me,  extending  her  hand  in 
greeting.  .  . 

"Why,  Johnnie  Gregory — YOU  here !" 

"Yes,  didn't  you ! " 

"I  knew  I  was  right  .  .  Penton  maintained  it  was  to-morrow  you 
were  due — Darrie  sided  with  him — Darrie  is  a  friend  of  mine  who 
is  visiting  us,  from  Virginia — but  Ruth,  Mubby's  secretary,"  she 
finished,  relapsing  into  her  intimate  petting  name  for  her  husband, 
(Mubby  is  short  for  "My  hubby") —  "Ruth  sided  with  me,  though 
we  had  quite  an  argument  about  it." 

"And  you  and  Ruth  were  right !" 

"Yes,  I  was  right,"  she  assented,  leaving  "Ruth"  out,  with  naive 
egoism. 

"Sit  down  in  the  morris  chair  .  .  you  look  dusty  and  heated  .  . 
I'll  entertain  you  .  .  I'm  all  alone  .  .  Penton  is  dictating  an  article 
to  Ruth.  Darrie's  washing  her  hair.  I'm  the  only  member  of  the 
Leisure  Class.     I'm  lazing  here,  reading  Gorky's  latest  novel." 

What  an  engaging,  pretty,  naive,  little  woman  this  was !  I  com- 
mented inwardly.  A  sweet  aroma  of  feminine  health  breathed  from 
her  body,  bosom,  hair — a  tumbly  black  mass — as  perfume  breathes 
from  a  wild  flower. 

Strangely  enough,  I  felt  calm  and  happy  in  her  presence ;  at  home, 
as  I  had  never  been  with  any  woman  or  girl  before. 

Up  to  this  moment,  when  alone  with  a  woman,  timidity  had 
touched  me  to  ice,  while  inwardly  I  had  trembled  with  suppressed 
passion  and  fright. 

Set  in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  women,  I  shone.  As  at  the  univer- 
sity, when  I  used  to  visit  whole  sorority  chapters  at  once,  and,  with 
from  five  to  ten  girls  seated  about  me  in  the  parlour,  talk  brilliantly 
and  easily  and  poetically  with  all  of  them.  Left  alone  with  any  one, 
my  mouth  dried  like  sand,  my  tongue  clove  to  my  palate,  I  shook 
all  over  as  with  a  palsy. 

With  Hildreth  Baxter  I  was  straightway,  marvellously,  at  my  I 
ease.  We  talked  of  Keats — she  seemed  to  know  all  of  his  verse] 
by  heart.  .  . 

Shelley — she  quoted  his  less-known  fragments.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  349 

"O  World!   O  Life!   O  Time!—" 

«0  world !   O  life !   O  time ! 
On  whose  last  steps  I  climb, 

Trembling  at  that  where  I  had  stood  before; 
When  will  return  the  glory  of  jour  prime? 

No  more — Oh,  never  more ! 

*'Out  of  the  day  and  night 
A  joy  has  taken  flight; 

Fresh  spring,  and  summer,  and  the  winter  hoar. 
Move  my  faint  heart  with  grief,  but  with  delight 

No  more — Oh,  never  more!" 

*'Surely  that  does  not  express  your  feelings — and  you  still  a 
young  and  beautiful  woman?" 

"No,  but  I  am  profoundly  moved  by  the  sad  beauty  of  it;  and 
by  the  fact  that  perhaps  Poe  got  his  refrain  of  'nevermore'  for 
his  Raven  as  a  reminiscence  from  it." 

She  laughed  engagingly  with  feminine  inconsequence  and  stooped 
down  to  recover  a  slight,  silver  bracelet  that  had  slipped  off  over 
one  of  her  small  hands.  I  caught  a  brief  glimpse  of  the  white  divi- 
sion of  her  breasts  as  she  stooped  over.  The  vision  stabbed  my 
heart  with  keen  enjoyment  that  pained.   .  . 

Already  we  were  caught  up  in  a  current  of  mysterious  fellow- 
feeling  that  was  soon  to  bear  us  onward  to  the  full  ocean  of  frank 
love  and  passion.    Though  at  this  time  neither  she  nor  I  perceived  it. 

Penton  came  in  .  .  the  little,  handsome,  red-faced  man,  with  his 
Napoleonic  head  too  large  for  his  small,  stocky  body  .  .  his  large, 
luminous  eyes  like  those  of  the  Italian  fisher  boy  in  the  painting  .  . 
his  mouth  a  little  too  large  .  .  his  chin  a  trifle  too  heavy-jowled. 
His  hands  were  feminine  .  .  but  his  feet  were  encased  in  heavy  shoes 
that  made  them  seem  the  feet  of  a  six-foot  day  labourer.   .   . 

Ruth,  his  secretary,  coming  close  behind  him, — was  tall,  not 
ungraceful  in  an  easy,  almost  mannish  way  ,  .  slab-figured  .  .  built 
more  like  a  boy  than  a  young  woman  dangerously  near  the  old 
maid.  She  too  wore  bloomers.  Her  face  was  tanned.  It  was  too 
broad  and  placid  for  either  prettiness  or  beauty,  but  a  mischievous 


350  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

tilt  to  the  nose  and  large  calm  hazel  eyes  kept  her  this  side  of  mere 
plainness.  .  . 

Penton  glanced  from  me  to  his  wife,  from  his  wife  to  me,  in  one 
look  of  instinctive  inquiry,  before  he  addressed  me.   .   . 

*'Well,  Johnnie,  here  you  are  .  .  East  at  last  .  .  and  about  to 
become  a  real  literary  man." 

"He's  been  here  a  full  hour  .  .  we  didn't  want  to  interrupt  you — " 
his  wife  explained. 

"Your  work  is  too  important  for  the  world" — I  began  sincerely 
and  reverently. 

Baxter  beamed.     His  being  expanded  under  my  worship. 

He  caught  both  my  hands,  friendlily,  in  his. 

"Welcome  to  Eden,"  then,  introducing,  "this  is  my  secretary. 
Miss  Ruth  Hazlitt ;  she's  been  quite  keen  to  meet  you  .  .  we've  talked 
of  you  a  lot  .  .  she  knows  your  poetry  and  thinks  you're  a  genius, 
and  will  some  day  be  recognised  as  a  great  poet." 

Ruth  Hazlitt  nodded,  shy,  took  my  hand  in  introduction. 

*'Darrie,  oh,  Dar-n^/"  called  Baxter  .  .  "a  Southern  society  girl, 
but  a  mighty  good  radical  already,"  he  explained  to  me,  sotto  voce^ 
as  we  heard  sounds  of  her  approach. 

Mary  Darfield  Malcolm  came  in,  in  a  flimsy  dressing  gown  of  yel- 
low, with  blue  ribbons  in  it,  her  hair  wet  and  still  done  up  in  a  towel. 
Superbly  she  trusted  to  her  big  eyes  of  limpid  brown,  and  to  the 
marble-like  pallour  of  her  complexion,  the  twin  laughing  dimples  in 
her  cheeks  .  .  she  added  her  welcome  to  the  others  .  .  easily,  with  a 
Southern  way  of  speech  that  caught  each  recalcitrant  word  by  the 
tail  and  caressed  its  back  as  it  came  out.  .  . 

That  afternoon,  at  Baxter's  suggestion,  he  and  I  launched  forth 
on  a  walk  together.  .  . 

"There  is  some  beautiful  country  for  walking  about  here." 

"Darrie,  will  you  and  Ruth  have  the  veal  steak  cooked  by  six 
o'clock?" 

I  noticed  that  he  did  not  include  his  wife.  Also,  I  looked  at  him 
in  amazement  .  .  a  look  the  significance  of  which  he  instantly 
caught.  .  .  Steak?     Meat? 

"I've  done  a  lot  of  experimenting  in  dietetics,"  he  explained, 
"and  I  have  finally  been  brought  to  face  the  fact,  after  years  of 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  351 

vegetarianism,  that  there's  nothing  Hke  a  good  steak  for  a  brain- 
worker.  It's  easily  digested  and  affords  ready  nourishment  .  .  vege- 
tables, yes  .  .  but  it  takes  up  so  much  vital  energy  to  digest  them  .  . 
the  meat-eating  races  are  the  dominant  races  of  the  world  .  .  but," 
he  flashed  quickly,  "I  always  try  to  be  logical  and  consistent.  If  I 
eat  meat,  I  must  be  willing  to  kill  the  animal  I  eat.  I  must  not 
stand  off  in  dainty  horror  over  the  butcher's  trade,  while  I  live  by  it." 

"Surely  you  don't  mean  that  you  do  your  own  butchering.'"' 

"No  .  .  not  that  .  .  but  I've  proven  to  myself  that  I  can  kill  .  , 
we  had  a  dog,  a  mongrel,  that  attached  itself  to  us  .  .  tore  up  every- 
thing in  my  study  .  .  tore  the  sheets  and  pillow  slips  on  the  beds  ,  . 
I  took  it  out  into  the  woods,"  he  ended  gravely,  "and  killed  .  .  shot 
it  .  .  of  course  I  had  to  summon  up  all  my  resolution  .  .  but  I  did  it." 

While  admitting  the  almost  childlike  exactness  of  my  friend's 
logic,  I  could  not  help  smiling  to  myself  at  his  grotesque  sin- 
cerity. .  . 

We  walked  far  .  .  through  green  fields  .  .  over  flashing  brooks  .  , 
through  lovely  woodland  vistas  .  .  we  paused  on  the  top  of  a  hill, 
with  vistas  all  about  us  .  .  just  as  we  had  done  on  Azure  Mound 
in  Kansas.  .  . 

"I  asked  you  to  take  this  walk  with  me  in  order  to  tell  you 
something.  .  .  Johnnie,  you're  my  friend,  and  that  is  why  I  don't 
want  you  to  stay  at  my  house  with  us.  I  want  you  to  put  up  at 
the  Community  Inn,  at  my  expense  .  .  eat  your  meals  with  us,  of 
course." 

I  was  surprised.  He  did  not  want  me  in  the  house  because  1 
was  his  friend!  .  .  in  silence  I  waited  his  further  explanation.   .   . 

"Yes,"  he  continued,  "I  want  to  spare  you  trouble  .  .  Hildreth  and 
I,  you  see,"  he  proceeded  with  painful  frankness,  "are  quite  near 
the  breaking  point  .  .  I  don't  think  we'll  be  together  very  many 
months  longer  .  .  and  .  .  and  .  .  I  don't  want  you  to  become  involved 
.  .  for  I'm  simply  desperate." 

"But,  Penton,  how  could  I  become  involved?" 

"Johnnie,  you  don't  know  women,  or  you  wouldn't  ask  .  .  especially 
women  of  my  wife's  type  .  .  hysterical,  parasitic,  passionate, 
desperate.  .  .  I  tell  you  what,  you  stay  at  the  inn !" 

A  pause; — I  was  startled  by  what  he  said  next: 

"Besides,  it's  time  you  had  a  mate,  a  real  mate  .  .  and  I,"  he 
proceeded  with  incredible  gravity,  "I  have  been  urging  Ruth,  my 


352  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

secretary,  to  tate  you  .  .  you  and  she  would  be  quite  happy  together 
.  .  she  can  support  herself,  for  instance  .  .  that  would  place  no 
economic  burden  on  you." 

"Really,  Penton!"  I  demurred. 

I  was  learning  how  utterly  bookish,  how  sheerly  a  literary  man 
Penton  Baxter  was  .  .  and  how  absurd,  at  the  same  time.  How 
life  never  drew  near  him,  how  he  ever  saw  it  through  the  film  of 
his  latest  theory,  and  tried  to  order  his  own,  as  well  as  everybody 
else's  life,  to  jibe  with  it.  .  . 

"Penton,  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  me  where  I  put  up.  It 
was  you  who  invited  me  to  come  to  Eden  .  .  but  I  won't  mind 
staying  at  Community  Inn,  as  I  can  only  be  with  you  for  a  couple 
of  weeks,  anyhow  .  .  I'm  due  to  take  a  cattleboat  for  Paris,  for 
Europe,  as  soon  as  I  have  Judas  finished."    ' 

Supper  .  .  veal  steaks  served  on  a  plain  board  table  outside  the 
big  house,  under  a  tree.  We  waited  on  ourselves.  We  discussed 
Strindberg,  his  novels  and  plays  .  .  his  curious  researches  in  science 
.  .  Nietzsche.  .  . 

Afterward,  having  eaten  off  wooden  plates,  we  flung  the  plates 
in  the  fireplace,  burning  them  .  .  Ruth  washed  the  knives,  forks, 
spoons.  .  . 

"It's  such  a  saving  of  effort  to  use  wooden  plates  and  paper 
napkins  .  .  so  much  less  mere  household  drudgery  .  .  so  much  more 
time  for  living  saved." 

I  had  taken  my  suitcase  and  was  about  to  repair  to  the  much- 
discussed  inn.  But  Penton  asked  me  to  wait,  while  he  had  a 
conference  with  the  three  women  of  the  household. 

Soon  he  came  out,  smiling  placidly  and  blandly. 

''Johnnie,  I'm  sorry  about  this  afternoon  .  .  I've  been  rather 
hasty,  raLher  inhospitable  .  .  you  are  not  to  go  to  the  inn,  but 
stay  with  us.  The  girls  have  persuaded  me  .  .  the  tent,  down 
beside  the  little  house,  is  yours  all  summer,  if  you  like." 

I  found  the  tent  in  a  clump  of  trees  .  .  it  had  a  hard  board 
floor,  a  wash-stand,  table,  chair,  and  cot. 

Along  with  the  rest  of  the  household,  I  retired  early  .  .  but 
not  to  sleep. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  353 

I  lit  my  big  kerosene  lamp  and  sat  propped  up  with  the  pillows, 
reading,  till  late,  the  poetry  of  Norah  May  French,  the  beautiful, 
red-headed  girl  who  had,  like  myself,  also  lived  in  Eos,  where 
Roderick  Spalton's  Artworks  were.  .  . 

She  had  been,  Penton  informed  me,  when  he  handed  me  her  book, 
one  of  the  famous  Bohemians  of  the  San  Francisco  and  Carmel  art 
and  literary  crowd.  .  . 

After  a  brief  career  of  adventurous  poverty,  she  had  committed 
suicide  over  a  love  affair. 

Her  poetry  was  full  of  beauty  and  spontaneity  .  .  a  grey  mist 
dancing  full  of  rainbows,  like  those  you  see  at  the  foot  of 
Niagara.  .  . 

I  must  have  read  myself  to  sleep,  for  the  lamp  was  still  lit  when 
I  woke  up  early  with  the  dawn  .  .  it  was  the  singing  of  the  birds 
that  woke  me  on  my  second  day  at  Eden.  .  . 

Working  on  farms,  in  factories,  on  ships  at  sea,  being  up  at 
all  hours  to  catch  freights  out  of  town  had  instilled  in  me  the 
habit  of  early  rising;  I  would  have  risen  at  dawn  anyhow  without 
the  birds  to  wake  me. 

Turning  over  for  my  pencil,  which  I  ever  keep,  together  with  a 
writing  pad,  at  my  bedside,  to  catch  the  fleeting  poetic  inspiration, 
I  indited  a  sonnet  to  Baxter  (all  copies  of  which  I  have  unfor- 
tunately lost  or  I  would  give  it  here)  in  which  I  sang  his  praises 
as  a  great  man  of  the  same  rank  as  Rousseau  and  Shelley. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  was  fully  aware  of  all  his  absurdities 
and  peccadilloes,  the  true  greatness  of  the  man  remained,  and  still 
remains,  undimmed  in  my  mind. 

High  day.  I  walked  along  the  path,  past  the  little  house  where 
Baxter  sequestered  himself  when  he  wished  to  be  alone  to  think  or 
write;  it  was  close  to  my  tent,  around  a  corner  of  trees.  I  tip- 
toed religiously  by  it,  went  on  up  to  the  big  house  where  the  three 
women  slept,  as  if  drawn  to  their  abode  by  a  sort  of  heliotropism. 

The  whole  house  stood  in  quiet,  the  embodiment  of  slumber. 

A  lank,  flat-chested  woman  came  up  the  path  from  the  opposite 
direction  .  .  dressed  drab  in  one  long,  undistinguished  gown  like  a 
Hicksite  or  Quaker,  without  the  hood  .  .  her  head  was  bare  .  .  her 
fine,  brown  hair  plaited  flat. 


864.  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Good  morning!" 

"Good  morning,"  she  replied,  a  query  in  her  voice. 

"I  am  John  Gregory,  the  poet,"  I  explained^  "I  arrived  yester- 
day on  a  visit  to  the  Baxters." 

She  said  she  had  heard  of  me  .  .  she  opened  the  door  and  went 
into  the  house.     I  followed. 

She  was  the  wife  of  Anarchist  Jones,  of  whom  I  had  already 
heard  the  household  speak — as  a  difficult,  recalcitrant  member  of 
the  colony. 

The  Joneses  were  very  poor.  They  had  two  children  and  lived 
in  a  mere  shack  on  the  outskirts  of  the  community.  Jones  was  a 
shoemaker.  His  wife  came  twice  a  week  to  clean  up  and  set  things 
to  rights  in  the  Baxter  menage — his  two  houses.  I  took  care  of 
the  tent  myself,  while  I  was  there.  .  . 

By  this  time  Darrie,  Ruth,  and  Mrs.  Baxter  were  up.  I  sat  in 
the  library,  in  the  morris  chair,  deeply  immersed  in  the  life  of 
Nietzsche,  by  his  sister.  Nevertheless  I  was  not  so  preoccupied  as 
not  to  catch  fugitive  glimpses  of  kimonos  disappearing  around  door- 
corners  .  .  women  at  their  mysterious  morning  ritual  of  prepar- 
ing themselves  against  the  day. 

Comfortable  of  mind,  at  ease  in  heart  and  body,  I  sat  there, 
dangling  one  leg  over  the  arm  of  the  chair.  I  was  much  at  home 
in  the  midst  of  this  easy,  disjointed  family  group. 

We  were,  the  four  of  us — Darrie,  Hildreth,  Ruth,  and  I — seated 
together  at  our  outdoor  table,  scooping  out  soft-boiled  eggs. 

Hildreth  Baxter  had  boiled  my  two  eggs  medium  for  me  .  .  to 
the  humorous,  affected  consternation  of  Darrie  and  Ruth,  which 
they,  of  course,  deliberately  made  visible  to  me,  with  the  impli- 
cation— 

"You'd  best  look  out,  when  Penton's  lazy  little  wife  waits  on 
you  .  .  she  is  the  one  who  generally  demands  to  be  waited  on, 
and  if " 

And  now,  for  the  moment,  all  of  us  were  combined  against  the 
master  of  the  house  .  .  furtively  and  jocularly  combined,  like 
naughty  children.  .  . 

Hildreth  smuggled  forth  her  coffee  percolator,  which  she  kept 
hidden  from  her  husband's  search  .  .  and  we  soon,  by  the  aid  of 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  355 

an  alcohol  stove,  had  a  cup  of  fragrant  coffee  a-piece  .  .  which 
Darrie  made.  .  . 

"Penton  swears  coffee  is  worse  than  whiskey,  the  rankest  of 
poisons.    We  have  to  hide  the  percolator  from  him." 

"He  lies  a-bed  late,  when  he  wakes.  He  lies  there  thinking  out 
what  he  will  later  on  dictate  to  Ruth  .  .  we  can  finish  before " 

But  just  then  Penton  himself  came  hurrying  up  the  path  from 
the  little  cottage. 

When  he  saw  what  we  were  doing  he  gave  us  such  a  look  of  solemn 
disgust  that  we  nearly  smothered  with  laughter,  which  we  tried  to 
suppress. 

"When  you  take  that  percolator  off  the  table "  he  stood  aloof, 

"I'll  sit  down  with  you." 

Then  we  laughed  outright,  not  in  disrespect  of  him,  but  as  children 
laugh  at  a  humorous  incident  at  school. 

"Oh,  yes,  it  might  seem  funny  .  .  so  does  a  drunken  man  who 
gives  up  his  reason  to  a  drug  seem  funny  .  .  but  it's  no  more 
a  joke  than  that  .  .  coffee  is  a  vile  poison  .  .  I  have  a  sense  of 
humour,"  he  continued,  turning  to  me,  "just  as  keen  as  the  next 
one  .  .  but  I  know,  by  scientific  research,  just  how  much  damage 
that  stuff  does." 

•  *••••• 

I  read  my  sonnet  to  Penton,  in  a  grave,  respectful  voice. 

Peace  was  patched.  We  then  sat  together,  under  the  chequered 
shade  of  the  big  tree  which  towered  over  our  table  .  .  Baxter 
waxed  as  eloquent  as  an  angel  .  .  the  wonderful,  absurd,  little  man. 

Daniel  came  romping  out  for  breakfast. 

Penton  reached  for  the  morning's  mail.  He  climbed  into  the 
hammock  and  read,  with  all  the  joy  of  a  boy,  the  huge  bunch  of 
press  clippings  about  himself,  his  activities,  his  work  .  .  a  daily 
procedure  of  his,  I  was  to  learn.  He  chuckled,  joked,  was  immensely 
pleased  .  .  handed  me  various  items  to  read,  or  read  choice  bits 
aloud  to  all  of  us. 

After  all,  though  I  pretended  to  criticise,  to  myself  .  .  yet,  in 
my  heart,  I  liked  his  frank  rejoicing  in  his  fame,  his  notoriety,  and 
only  envied  him  his  ability  to  do  so. 

I  returned  to  my  tent  to  work,  as  I  had  planned  to  do  each  morn- 


366  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

ing,  on  my  play  Judas.  The  dialogue  would  not  come  to  me  .  .  I 
laid  it  aside  and  instead  was  inspired  to  set  down  instantly  the  blank 
verse  proem  to  the  play : 

*'A  noise  of  archery  and  wielded  swords 

All    night    rang    through    his    dreams.      When    risen    morn 

Let  down  her  rosy  feet  on  Galilee 

Blue-vistaed,  on  the  house-top  Judas  woke: 

Desire  of  battle  brooded  in  his  breast 

Although  the  day  was  hung  with  sapphire  peace. 

And  to  his  inner  eye  battalions  bright 

Of  seraphim,  fledged  with  celestial  mail, 

Came  marching  up  the  wide-flung  ways  of  dawn 

To  usher  in  the  triumph-day  of  Christ.  .  . 

But  sun  on  sun  departed,  moon  on  moon. 

And  still  the  Master  lingered  by  the  way, 

Iscariot  deemed,  dusked  in  mortality 

And  darkened  in  the  God  by  flesh  of  man. 

For  Judas  a  material  kingdom  saw 

And  not  a  realm  of  immaterial  gold, 

A  city  of  renewed  Jerusalem 

And  not  that  New  Jerusalem,  diamond-paved 

With  love  and  sapphire-walled  with  brotherhood, 

Which  He,  the  Master,  wrestled  to  make  plain 

With  thews  of  parable  and  simile 

So  *  'tis  the  flesh  that  clogs  him,'  Judas  thought 

(A  simple,  earnest  man,  he  loved  him  well 

And  slew  him  with  great  friendship  in  the  end)  ; 

*Yea,  if  he  chose  to  say  the  word  of  power, 

The  seraphim  and  cherubim,  invoked, 

Would   wheel   in   dazzling    squadrons   down   the    sky 

And  for  the  hosts  of  Israel  move  in  war 

As  in  those  holy  battles  waged  of  yore'  .  ,  . 

"Ah,  all  the  world  now  knows  Gethsemane, 
But  few  the  love  of  that  betraying  kiss  1" 

•  •••••• 

I  did  not  have  to  be  very  long  at  Eden  to  learn  that  the  community 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  357 

was  divided  into  two  parties :  the  more  conservative,  rooted  element 
whom  success  was  malcing  more  and  more  conservative, — and  the 
genuinely  radical  crowd.  The  anarchist,  Jones,  led  the  latter  group, 
a  very  small  one. 

As  far  as  I  could  see,  this  anarchist-shoemaker  held  the  right. 
On  my  third  day  in  Eden  my  interest  in  the  community  life  about  me 
led  me  to  inquire  my  way  to  the  place  where  Jones  lived  .  .  a  shack 
built  practically  in  its  entirety  of  old  dry  goods  boxes  .  .  a  two- 
room  affair  with  a  sort  of  enlarged  dog-kennel  adjunct  that  stood 
out  nearer  the  road — Jones's  workshop. 

The  man  looked  like  the  philosopher  he  was — the  anarchist- 
philosopher,  as  the  newspapers  were  to  dub  him  .  .  as  he  sat  there 
before  his  last,  hammering  away  at  the  shoe  he  was  heeling,  not 
stopping  the  motions  of  his  hands,  while  he  put  that  pair  aside, 
to  sew  at  another  pair,  while  he  discoursed  at  large  with  me  over 
men  and  affairs. 

**What  is  all  this  trouble  I'm  hearing  about?"  I  asked  him. 

"Trouble? — same  old  thing:  Alfred  Grahame,  when  he  founded, 
started,  this  colony,  was  a  true  idealist.  But  success  has  turned 
his  head,  worsened  him,  since, — as  it  has  done  with  many  a  good 
man  before.  Now  he  goes  about  the  country  lecturing,  on  Shakes- 
peare, God,  the  Devil,  or  anything  else  that  he  knows  nothing 
about.  .  . 

"But  it  isn't  that  that  I  object  to  .  .  it  is  that  he's  allowing 
the  original  object  of  this  colony,  and  of  the  Single  Tax  Idea,  to 
become  gradually  perverted  here.  We're  becoming  nothing  but  a 
summer  resort  for  the  aesthetic  quasi-respectables  .  .  these  folk  are 
squeezing  us  poor,  honest  radicals  out,  by  making  the  leases  pro- 
hibitive in  price  and  condition." 

He  stopped  speaking,  while  he  picked  up  another  pair  of  shoes, 
examined  them,  chose  one,  and  began  sewing  a  patch  on  it.  .  . 

He  rose,  with  his  leathern  apron  on,  and  saw  me  out.  .  . 

« — glad  you  came  to  see  old  Jones  .  .  you'll  see  and  hear  a  lot 
more  of  me,  the  next  week  or  so !"  and  he  smiled  genially,  prophetic- 
ally. 

He  looked  like  Socrates  as  he  Stood  there  .  .  jovially  homely, 
round-faced  .  .  head  as  bald  as  ivory  .  .  red,  bushy  eyebrows  that 
were  so  heavy  he  shrugged  them.  .  . 

"I'm  just  beginning  the  fight  (would  you  actually  believe  it)  fqr 


368  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

free  speech  here  .  .  it  takes  a  radical  community,  you  know,  to 
teach  the  conservatives  how  to  suppress  freedom.  .  . 

"You  must  come  around  to  the  big  barn  Friday  night,  after  the 
circus." 

" — the  circus.'"' 

"Oh,  we  have  a  circus  of  our  own  every  summer  about  this  time 
,  .  we  represent  the  animals  ourselves  .  .  some  of  us  don't  need 
to  make  up  much,  neither,  if  we  only  knew  it,"  he  roared. 

"After  the  imitation  circus,  the  real  circus  will  begin.  I  have 
compelled  the  announcement  of  a  general  meeting  to  discuss  my 
grievances,  and  that  of  others,  who  are  not  game  enough  to  speak 
for  themselves." 


I  found  nobody  but  Hildreth — Mrs.  Baxter — at  home,  when  I 
returned.  She  was  lying  back  in  the  hammock  where  Penton  lounged 
to  read  his  news  clippings  .  .  near  the  outdoor  table  .  .  dressed 
easily  in  her  bloomers  and  white  middy  blouse  with  the  blue  bow 
tie  .  .  her  great,  brown  eyes,  with  big  jet  lashes,  drooping  langour- 
ously  over  her  healthy,  rounded  cheeks  .  .  her  head  of  rich,  dark 
hair  touseled  attractively.  She  was  reading  a  book.  I  caught  the 
white  gleam  of  one  of  her  prdtty  legs  where  the  elastic  on  one  side 
of  her  bloomers  had  slipped  up. 

Alone  with  her,  a  touch  of  my  old  almost  paralytic  shyness 
returned  .  .  but  the  pathway  to  my  tent  lay  so  near  her  hammock 
I  would  almost  brush  against  its  side  in  passing.  .  . 

She  looked  up.  She  gazed  at  me  indefinitely,  as  if  coming  back 
from  a  far  dream  to  reality. 

"Oh,  Johnnie  Gregory!  You?"  fingering  her  hair  with  flexible 
fingers  like  a  violinist  trying  his  instrument. 

"Yes !"  I  stopped  abruptly  and  flushed. 

"Did  Jones  like  you?" 

"I  think  he  did." 

"Jones  is  an  eccentric  .  .  but  nine-tenths  of  the  time  he  is  right 
in  his  contentions  .  .  his  moral  indignations  .  .  it  is  his  spirit  of  no 
compromise  that  defeats  him." 

With  that  she  reached  out  one  hand  to  me,  with  that  pretty 
droop  of  the  left  corner  of  her  mouth,  that  already  had  begun  to 
fascinate  me.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  359 

"Help  me  up  .  .  a  hammock's  a  nice  place  to  be  in,  but  an  awk- 
ward thing  to  get  out  of." 

I  took  her  hand  and  helped  her  rise  to  a  sitting  posture. 

"Ruth's  in  the  little  house  typing  .  .  Penton  and  Darrie  are 
a-field  taking  a  walk." 

I  paused  where  I  was.  Mrs.  Baxter  stood  directly  in  the  pathway 
that  led  to  my  tent.  And  the  second  act  of  Judas  had  begun  to 
burn  in  my  brain,  during  my  vigorous  walk  back  from  Jones's 
shack.  .  . 

"In  the  yard  of  an  inn  at  Capernaum.  On  the  left  stands  the 
entrance  to  the  inn.  In  the  extreme  background  lies  the  beach,  and, 
beyond,  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  A  fisherboat  is  seen,  drawn  up  on 
shore.    Three  fishermen  discovered  mending  nets,  at  rise  of  curtain." 

The  stage  was  set  for  the  second  act.  I  must  get  the  play  finished 
in  the  rough.  I  owed  this  much  to  Mr.  Derek,  who  was  faithfully 
backing  me — if  not  to  my  own  career  .  .  and  already  I  had  suc- 
ceeded in  interesting  Mitchell  Kennerley,  the  new  young  publisher, 
in  my  effort.  After  the  book  was  disposed  of  .  .  then  Europe  .  . 
then  London  .  .  then  Paris,  and  all  the  large  life  of  the  brilliant; 
world  of  intellect  and  literature  that  awaited  me. 

But,  at  the  present,  one  small,  dainty,  dark  woman  unconsciously 
stood  in  my  pathway.  I  looked  into  Hildreth  Baxter's  face  with 
caution,  strangely  disquieted,  but  proud  to  be  outwardly  self- 
possessed. 

**Let's  us  take  a  walk,"  she  suggested. 

"No,  I  must  go  to  my  tent  and  write!" 

"Oh,  come  now  .  .  don't  you  be  like  Mubby!  .  .  that's  the  way 
he  talks." 

"All  right,"  I  assented,  amazed  at  her  directness,  "I'll  put  my 
work  by  for  the  day — though  the  entire  dialogue  of  the  three  Gali- 
lean fishermen  about  the  miracle  of  the  great  draught  of  fishes  is 
at  this  very  moment  burning  in  my  brain." 

She  laid  her  hand  lightly,  but  with  an  electric  contact,  on  the 
bend  of  my  arm,  and  off  we  started,  into  the  inviting  fields. 

Not  far  out,  we  came  across  a  group  of  romping  children.  They 
were  shouting  and  chasing  one  another  about,  as  happy  dogs  do 
when  overjoyed  with  excessive  energy. 

The  example  the  children  set  was  contagious  .  .  Hildreth  and  I 


360  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

were  soon  romping  too — ^when  out  of  the  former's  sight.  We  took 
hands  and  ran  hard  down  a  hill,  and  half-way  up  another  one 
opposite,  through  our  own  natural  impetus. 

We  changed  our  mood,  strolling  slowly  and  thoughtfully  till  we 
came  to  a  small  rustic  bridge,  so  pretty  it  seemed  almost  like  stage- 
craft, that  spanned,  at  one  leap,  one  of  the  countryside's  innumer- 
able, flashing  brooks.  We  stood  looking  over  into  the  foaming, 
speeding  water. 

"There's  one  thing  sure  about  Eden  .  .  in  spite  of  the  squabbles 
and  disagreements  of  the  elders,  the  place  is  a  children's  paradise." 

"That's  only  because  they  have  all  nature  for  their  backyard — 
no  thanks  to  their  elders,"  Hildreth  answered,  looking  up  into  my 
face  with  a  quick  smile,  "the  grown-ups  find  misery  wherever 
they  go." 

"Does  that  mean  that  you  are  unhappy.?'* 

"I  suppose  I  should  say  'no.'  " 

"I  don't  understand  what  you  mean." 

"Neither  do  I,  then." 

Again  that  sweet,  tantalizing,  enigmatic  droop  of  her  mouth's 
corner. 

We  strolled  further  .  .  into  the  fields  again  .  .  with  linked  com- 
radely hands.  It  seemed  that  she  and  I  had  been  born  brother  and 
sister  in  some  impossible  pastoral  idyll. 

A  change  in  our  spirit  again.    A  fresh  desire  to  romp. 

"Let's  play  just  as  if  we  were  children,  too." 

"Tag!  You're  if/"  and  I  touched  her  arm  and  ran.  She  ran 
after  me  in  that  curious  loping  fashion  peculiar  to  women.  I  turned 
and  wound  like  a  hare.  She  stopped,  breathless.  "That's  no  fair !" 
she  cried,  "you're  running  too  fast." 

"Well,  then,  I'll  almost  stand  still,  then  see  if  you  can  catch  me !" 

She  made  at  me,  shouting,  her  face  flushed  with  the  exercise.  I 
ducked  and  swerved  and  doubled. 

"You're  quite  quick  and  strong,"  she  exclaimed,  admiringly,  as 
I  caught  her  by  the  shoulders. 

I  stooped  over,  hunching  my  back. 

"Come  on,  play  leap-frog,"  I  invited.  She  hesitated,  gave  a  run 
at  me,  put  both  hands  on  my  back,  but  caught  her  left  leg  on  my 
neck.    We  collapsed  in  a  laughing  heap,  she  on  top  of  me. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  361 

Slowly  we  disentangled  ourselves.  I  reached  a  hand  and  helped 
her  up. 

"I'm  no  good  at  that,  either  .  .  let's  stop  playing  .  .  I'm  tired." 

We  caught  sight  of  a  little  man  crossing  a  field,  trotting  like  a 
dog  out  hunting  on  his  own.    He  looked  back  twice  as  he  went. 

" — ^wonder  if  he  saw  us?" 

" — perhaps — but  what  matter  if  he  did?" 

"Then  I  hope  he's  not  a  fellow  Edenite.  You  have  no  idea  what 
an  undercurrent  of  gossip  runs  in  this  place." 

We  sank  down  together  on  a  small  knoll  under  the  low-spreading 
branches  of  a  live  oak.  We  watched  the  man  who  we  thought  had 
observed  pur  antics  bobbing  off  down  the  road,  as  if  running  for 
exercise. 

We  sat  quite  apart,  at  first.  Then  our  hands  met  in  instinctive 
fondness  .  .  met  in  the  spirit  in  which  we  had  been  romping  together, 

"You're  like  a  small  boy,  Johnnie." 

"And  you  haven't  acted  so  very  much  like  a  grown  woman,  have 
you,  Hildreth?"  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  called  her  by  her  first 
name. 

"Can  you,  or  anyone  else,  tell  me  just  how  grown  women  do  act? 
I  myself  don't  know,  yet  I'm  a  woman." 

I  drew  closer  to  her  as  if  drawn  by  some  attractive  power.  A3 
stray  wisp  of  her  hair  lit  across  my  cheek  stingingly.  Then  the 
wind  blew  a  perfumed  strand  of  it  across  my  lips  and  over  my 
nostrils. 

It  made  me  rub  my  lips,  it  tickled  so.     Hildreth  noticed  it. 

"Wait,"  she  bade  playfully,  "I'll  bet  I  can  make  you  rub  your 
lips  again." 

"No,  you  can't." 

"Hold  still!"  she  leaned  toward  me;  I  could  look  down  into  her 
bosom.     She  just  touched  my  lips  with  her  forefinger. 

"Now !"  she  exclaimed  triumphantly. 

" — think  you've  tickled  me,  do  you?" 

"—just  wait !" 

I  forgot  myself.  My  lips  tickled  and  I  rubbed  them  with  the 
length  of  a  finger  .  .  Hildreth  laughed.  .  . 

"Hildreth!" 

I  leaned  toward  my  friend's  wife,  calling  her  again  by  her  first 
name. 


36«  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  lay  in  a  half-reclining  posture,  my  head  almost  against  her  hip. 
I  was  looking  up  into  her  face.  She  glanced  down  at  me  with  a 
quick  start  at  the  tone  of  my  voice.  She  looked  gravely  for  a 
moment  into  my  face.  I  observed  an  enigmatic  something  deep  in 
her  eyes  .  .  which  sank  slowly  back  as  the  image  of  a  face  does, 
in  water, — as  the  face  itself  is  withdrawn.  She  moved  apart  a  little, 
with  a  motion  of  slow  deliberation. 

"Hildreth !"  I  heard  myself  calling  again,  with  a  deep  voice,  a 
voice  that  sounded  alien  in  my  own  ears.  .  . 

"Come,  boy !"  and  she  pulled  back  her  hand  from  my  grasp,  and 

catching  mine  in  hers  a  moment,  patted  the  back  of  it  lightly " 

come,  don't  let's  be  foolish  .  .  we've  had  such  a  happy  afternoon 
together,  don't  let's  spoil  it  .  .  now  let's  start  home." 

As  soon  as  I  was  on  my  feet  and  away  from  her,  she  became  play- 
ful again.     She  reached  up  her  hand  for  me. 

"Help  me  up!" 

I  brought  her  to  her  feet  with  a  strong,  quick  pull,  and  against 
my  breast.  But  I  did  not  dare  do  what  I  desired — take  her  in 
my  arms  and  try  to  kiss  her.  She  paused  a  second,  then  thrust 
me  back. 

"Look,  the  sun's  almost  gone  down  .  .  and  Mubby  and  Darrie 
will  be  home  a  long  time  by  this  time  .  .  and  Mubby  will  be  get- 
ting fidgety." 

The  sun's  last  huge  shoulder  of  red  was  hulking  like  a  spy  behind  a 
distant,  bare  knoll  .  .  separate  blades  of  grass  stood  up  in  micro- 
scopic yet  giant  distinctness,  against  its  crimson  background. 

Our  walk  home  was  a  silent,  passively  happy  one  that  went 
without  incident.  .  , 

•  •••••• 

Penton  and  Darrie  were  indeed  home  before  us. 

"Where  have  you  two  been  all  this  time,"  Penton  asked,  a  slight 
touch  of  querulousness  in  his  voice. 

"Oh,  Johnnie  and  I  have  been  out  for  a  walk,  too!"  replied 
Hildreth  in  an  even  voice. 

•  •••••• 

At  lunch,  the  next  day, — a  day  when  Penton  was  called  in  to 
Philadelphia  on  business — while  Darrie,  Ruth,  Hildreth  and  I  sat 
talking  together  peacefully  about  our  outdoor  board,  Hildreth  sud-* 
denly  threw  a  third  of  a  glass  of  milk  on  Darrie's  shirt-waist  front) 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  363 

We  were  astounded. 

"Why,  Hildreth,  what  does  this  mean?"  I  asked. 

"I  won't  stop  to  explain,"  she  said,  "but  from  now  on  I  won't 
stay  in  the  same  house  with  her  .  .  I'm  going  to  move  this  after- 
noon, down  to  Penton's  house  (meaning  the  little  cottage  but  a  few 
steps  from  my  tent)  .  .  Ruth  rose  to  intercede.  .  .  "Don't  Ruth, 
don't !  I  want  to  be  let  alone."    And  Hildreth  hurried  away. 

"What  in  the  world  could  be  the  matter  with  Hildreth?"  I  asked 
of  Ruth.  Darrie  had  also  departed,  to  the  big  house,  to  rub  her 
blouse  quickly,  so  that  no  stain  would  remain. 

Hildreth's  capricious,"  answered  Ruth,  "but  the  plain  explana- 
tion is  downright  jealousy." 

"Jealousy  ?" 

"Yes  .  .  even  though  Hildreth  no  longer  loves  Penton,  she's 
jealous  of  him  .  .  the  fact  is,  Hildreth  doesn't  know  what  she 
wants." 

"But  Darrie — ^Darrie  is  her  friend?" 

*'0f  course  .  .  and  remains  her  friend.  Darrie  doesn't  want 
Penton.     She  only  pities  him." 

I  quoted  the  line  about  pity  being  akin  to  love  .  .  "they  do  a  lot 
of  strolling  together." 

"Yes.  But  there's  nothing  between  them  .  .  not  even  a  kiss  .  . 
of  that  I'm  certain.  Darrie  is  as  cool  as  a  cucumber  .  .  and  Penton 
is  as  shy  with  women  as — you  are !" 

I  smiled  to  myself.    If  Ruth  had  seen  us  that  preceding  afternoon ! 

*'0f  course  the  fault  could  not  all  be  on  Hildreth's  side." 

*'No,  they're  both  a  couple  of  ninnies  .  .  but  there's  this  to  be 
said  for  Penton,  he's  trying  to  get  something  done  for  the  better- 
ment of  humanity  .   .  while  Hildreth's  only  a  parasite." 

*'And  Darrie — how  about  her?  What  does  she  do  but  loaf  around 
in  a  more  conventional  manner,  talking  about  her  social  prestige, 
the  dress  of  one  of  her  ancestresses  in  the  Boston  Museum,  her 
aristocratic  affiliations  .  .  how  many  and  how  faithful  those  negro 
servants  of  hers  are,  down  South  ,  .  between  the  two,  Hildreth  has 
the  livest  brain,  and  puts  on  less." 

"Take  care!  You'll  be  falling  in  love  with  Penton  Baxter's 
wife  yet !" 

Our  talk  was  halted  by  Darrie's  re-appearance.  Hildreth  came 
furtively  back,  too,  from  the  little  cottage,  like  a  guilty  child.    She 


364  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

apologized  to  Darrie,  and  her  apology  was  accepted,  and,  in  a  few 
minutes  we  were  talking  ahead  as  gaily  as  before.  .  . 

We  rehearsed  Hildreth  in  her  part  as  Titania  .  .  for  that  was 
the  part  she  was  to  play  in  The  Mid-Summer  Nighfs  Dream,  that 
the  Actors'  Guild  of  the  colony  was  to  put  on  in  their  outdoor 
theatre,  a  week  from  that  afternoon  .  .  Hildreth  insisted  on  dress- 
ing for  the  part  .  .  in  her  green,  skin  tights  .  .  letting  her  black 
hair  flow  free  .  .  wearing  even  her  diadem,  as  fairy  queen.  She 
had  a  good,  musical  voice  .  .  a  way  of  speaking  with  startled  shy- 
ness that  was  engaging. 

But  Hildreth  stuck  to  her  original  intention  of  moving  to  the 
cottage.     She  had  Mrs.  Jones  move  her  things  for  her. 

As  I  sat  in  the  library  of  the  big  house  reading  Tolstoy's  Anna 
Karenina,  I  overheard  Darrie  telling  Ruth  in  the  bathroom  that 
Hildreth  would  not  have  insisted  on  donning  her  tights,  if  she  had 
not  been  proud  of  her  symmetrical  legs,  and  had  not  wanted  to 
show  them  off  to  me. 

Between  the  three  women,  nevertheless,  Hildreth  was  easily  my 
choice  already  .  .  Darrie  was  lovely,  but  talked  like  a  debutante 
from  morning  till  night.   .   . 

Ruth  had  too  much  of  the  quietist  in  her,  the  non-resistent.  She 
had  a  vast  fund  of  scholarship,  knew  English  poetry  from  the  ground 
up  .  .  but  her  bringing  that  knowledge  to  me  as  an  attraction  was 
like  presenting  a  peacock's  feather  to  a  bird  of  paradise.  .  . 

However,  when  Penton  came  home  that  night,  he  found  us  all 
in  huge  good  humour.  I  had  just  received  a  check  from  Derek, 
and  had  insisted  on  spending  most  of  it  for  a  spread  for  all  of  us, 
including  a  whopping  beefsteak. 

And  we  ate  and  joked  and  enjoyed  ourselves  just  like  the 
bourgeoisie. 

•  •••••• 

If  Penton  only  had  had  a  sense  of  humour  ,  .  but  this  I  never 
detected  in  him. 

Even  at  singing  classes,  which  I  attended  one  evening  with  him 
.  .  his  whole  entourage,  in  fact.  .  . 

With  solemn  face  he  sang  high,  and  always  off  key,  till  the  three 
women  had  to  stuff  their  handkerchiefs  in  their  mouths  to  keep  from 
laughing  at  him  before  his  face.  .  . 

After  class,  we  strolled  home  by  a  devious  path,  through  the 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  365 

moonlight.  This  time  Ruth  walked  ahead  with  little  Dan,  Hildreth 
with  her  husband,  Penton, — Darrie  with  me.   .   . 

"Drag  back  a  little,  Johnnie  .  .  Penton  and  Hildreth  are  having 
a  private  heart-to-heart  talk,  I  can  tell  by  their  voices." 

We  hung  back  till  they  disappeared  around  a  bend.  We  were 
alone.  Darrie  began  to  laugh  and  laugh  and  laugh.  .  .  "Oh,  it's 
so  funny,  I  shall  die  laughing".  .  , 

**Why — ^why,  what's  the  matter !" 

For  I  saw  tears  streaming  down  the  girl's  face  in  the  moonlight. 

*'It's  so  awful,"  replied  Darrie,  now  crying  quietly,  " — so  tragic 
,  .  yet  I  had  to  laugh  .  .  I'm  so  sorry  for  Penton  .  .  for  both 
of  them.  .  . 

*'Penton  is  such  a  jackass,  Johnnie,"  she  gulped,  "and  God  knows, 
as  I  do,  he's  such  an  honest,  good  man  .  .  helping  poor  people  all 
over  the  country  .  .  really  fighting  the  fight  of  the  down-trodden 
and  the  oppressed." 

I  put  my  arm  around  the  girl's  waist,  and  she  wept  on  my 
shoulder. 

Finally  she  straightened  up  her  head,  stopping  her  crying  with 
difficulty. 

"We're  all  so  funny,  aren't  we?" 

*'Yes,  we're  a  funny  bunch,  Darrie  .  .  all  so  mixed  up, — the 
world  wouldn't  believe  it,  would  they,  if  we  told  them?" 

*'And  you  could  never  make  them  understand,  even  if  you  did  tell 
them.  You  know,  my  dear,  old  Southern  daddy — ^he  thinks  Penton 
is  a  limb  of  the  old  Nick  himself  .  .  with  his  theories  about  life,  and 
the  freedom  of  relations  between  the  sexes,  and  all  that  .  .  even 
yet  he  may  leave  me  out  of  his  will  for  coming  up  here,  though  he 
has  all  the  confidence  in  the  world  in  me." 

And  Mary  Darfield  Malcolm — whom  we  always  called  "Darrie" 
— ^went  quickly  to  her  room  when  we  got  back,  so  the  others  wouldn't 
notice  that  she  had  been  crying.  .  . 

Quite  often,  in  the  afternoons,  toward  dusk,  around  a  dying  fire, 
the  whole  community  had  "sings"  out  in  the  woods,  near  the  one 
large  stream  that  abutted  the  colony,  and  gathered  into  itself,  all 
the  little  brooks.  .  . 

The  old  songs  were  sung;  rich,  beautiful,  old  Scotch  and  English 


366  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

and  Irish  ballads — which  were  learnt,  by  all  who  wanted  to  know 
them,  at  the  singing  school  .  .  and  the  old-fashioned  American 
songs,  too. 

And  the  music  softened  our  hearts  and  fused  us  into  one  harmony 
of  feeling.  And  all  the  bickerings  of  the  community's  various  "isms" 
melted  away  .  .  after  all,  there  was  not  so  very  much  disharmony 
among  us.  And,  after  all,  the  marvel  is  that  human  beings  get  along 
together  at  all. 

•  •••••• 

The  afternoon  before  the  "circus"  the  little  settlement  more  than 
ever  took  on  the  appearance  of  a  medieval  village  .  .  almost  every- 
body took  turns  in  participating  in  the  "circus"  .  .  almost  every- 
body togged  out  in  costume.  But  first  we  had  a  parade  of  the 
"guilds"  .  .  the  Actors'  Guild,  in  which  Hildreth  bore  a  part;  in 
her  pretty  tights  she  looked  like  a  handsome  boy  page  in  some 
early  Italian  prince's  court. 

Don  Grahame  was  the  son  of  the  leader  of  the  community  whom 
Jones  had  promised  to  rake  over  the  coals  that  night,  after  the 
circus. 

Don  led  the  Carpenters'  Guild,  looking  like  nothing  else  than 
a  handsome  boy  Christ.  Don,  secretly  disliking  in  his  heart  the 
free-love  doctrines  his  father  and  others  taught  (though  he  always 
rose  loyally  in  his  father's  defence)  had  gone  to  the  other  extreme, 
he  lived  an  ascetic,  virgin  life.  But  it  didn't  seem  to  hurt  him.  He 
was  as  handsome  as  Hildreth  was  beautiful. 

Everybody  liked  the  young  fellow.  He  had  sworn  that  he  would 
maintain  his  manner  of  abstinent  living  till  he  fell  in  love  with  a 
girl  who  loved  him  in  return.     Then  they  would  live  together.   .  . 

That,  he  maintained,  was  the  true  and  only  meaning  of  free  love. 
He  had  no  use  for  varietism  nor  promiscuity. 

The  Guilds  paraded  twice  around  the  Village  Green,  led  by  the 
Guild  of  Music  Masters,  who  played  excellently  well. 

The  Children's  Guild  was  a  romping,  lovely  sight. 

•  •••••• 

The  circus  was  held  shortly  afterward  in  the  huge  communal 
barn,  in  the  centre  of  its  great  floor, — the  spectators  seated  about 
on  the  sides.  .  . 

There  was  the  trick  mule,  made  up  of  two  men  under  an  ox-hide, 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  367 

the  mule  fell  apart  and  precipitated  Don  Grahame  In  between  its 
two  halves  .  .  each  half  then  ran  away  in  opposite  directions. 

Don  rode  so  well  that  that  was  the  only  way  they  (I  mean  the 
mule)  could  unseat  him.     He  won  much  affectionate  applause. 

Then  there  was  the  fearful,  great  boa-constrictor  .  .  which 
turned  out  to  be  a  double-jointed,  lithe,  acrobatic,  boy-like  girl  whom 
we  knew  as  Jessie  .  .  Jessie,  they  whispered,  was  marked  for  death 
by  consumption,  if  she  didn't  look  out  and  stop  smoking  so  many 
cigarettes  .  .  she  was  slender  and  pretty — ^but  spoke  with  an 
adenoidal  thickness  of  speech. 

The  colony  was  as  merry  as  if  no  storm  impended. 

We  adjourned  for  supper. 

After  supper,  under  the  evening  star  we  marched  back  to  the 
barn  again,  which  also  served  as  our  town  hall.  On  the  way  there 
our  talk  was  subdued  and  expectant.  Many  people  were  disgruntled 
with  Jones. 

"Why  must  he  do  this?" 

"Why  can't  old  Jones  let  well  enough  alone.''  .  .  no  community's 
perfect,  not  even  our  community." 

Daniel  had  been  put  to  bed,  angrily  objecting. 

The  five  of  us  joined  the  flow  of  people  toward  the  barn.  Penton 
carried  a  lantern. 

*' Jones  is  all  right,"  said  Penton  to  me,  "I  like  his  spirit.  I'm 
going  to  stand  by  him,  if  he  finds  himself  seriously  pressed,  just 
because  the  man's  spirit  is  a  good  one  .  .  nothing  mean  about  him 
.  .  but  I  know  he'll  place  me  among  the  snobs  and  wealthy  of  the 
community." 

When  all  were  gathered,  as  still  as  at  the  opening  of  a  prayer 
meeting,  Grahame  came  in,  and,  with  his  son  and  other  friends, 
took  seats  opposite  Jones.  Grahame,  who  had  been  master  of  cere- 
monies and  ring  master  for  the  afternoon  circus,  had  not  changed 
his  dress  of  knee-britches  and  ruffed  shirt. 

The  debate  was  prolonged  and  fiery.  .  . 

Jones  launched  into  a  gallant  attack  on  Grahame,  and  was  replied 
to  evasively.  Don  Grahame  wanted  to  punch  Jones's  head  for  what 
he  called  slurs  cast  at  his  father's  good  name.  .  . 

Penton  made  a  famous  speech  reconciling,  almost,  the  irreconcil- 
able parties. 

And  so  we  adjourned. 


368  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Penton  and  I  accompanied  Jones  home.  All  the  way  the  latter 
was  arguing  against  Baxter's  plea,  that  he  be  more  lenient  with 
Grahame.  .  . 

"You  look  out,  Penton,"  Jones  warned  with  genial  firmness  .  . 
"Grahame  has  been  trying  to  persuade  people  in  this  community 
not  to  bring  shoes  to  me  to  be  mended  .  .  a  dirty  attempt  to  starve 
me  out  .  .  Oh,  no!  .  .  I  haven't  the  slightest  trace  of  persecu- 
tion mania.   .  . 

And  you'd  better  look  out,  Penton,  and  not  play  tennis  this  Sun- 
day, for  I'm  going  to  strike  back  at  the  tennis-playing  snobs  here,  of 
whom  you're  one." 

"Jones,  what  do  -"ou  meua  by  that?  Surely  not  a  bomb  to  smear 
us  all  over  the  courts!"  Penton  joked. 

"A  bomb,  yes  .  .  it  will  be  a  bomb  of  sorts  .  .  but  I  warn  you 
you  shan't  play  games  on  Sunday  any  more.  I'll  see  to  that  .  . 
not  that  I've  unexpectedly  grown  religious,  but  that  I  mean  to  strike 
back  as  pettily  as  the  way  in  which  I'm  being  persecuted." 

*'I  suppose  he  means  the  Blue  Laws,"  Penton  commented  seriously, 
*'but  surely  he  can  get  no  one  to  enforce  them." 

•  •••••• 

But  Jones  found  a  facetious  officer  of  the  law  or  so,  down  in 
Philadelphia,  who  were  as  glad  of  a  chance  to  molest  a  radical 
colony  as  of  an  opportunity  to  put  over  a  good  joke.   .  . 

Baxter,  Grahame,  Bedell,  and  others  of  the  prominent  members 
of  the  community  were  haled  in  to  court  .  .  and,  to  the  surprise  of 
everyone,  sentenced  to  forty-eight  hours  hard  labour  on  the  rock- 
pile,  in  the  workhouse.  .  . 

And  Jones  sang  triumphant  snatches  of  song  and  hammered  away 
merrily  at  shoes  in  his  little  shack  along  the  road,  while  unused 
hands  gathered  water  blisters  making  big  stones  into  little  ones, 
with  other  and  heavier  hammers. 

The  newspapers  made  a  great  to-do  about  the  matter.  The  affair 
was  just  serio-comic  enough  to  attract  nation-wide  attention.  And 
the  story  was  a  good  one — the  story  of  the  anarchist-shoemaker 
who  invoked  the  use  of  archaic,  reactionary  laws,  in  his  battle 
against  his  less  radical  antagonists,  the  Single  Taxers  and  Socialists. 

Story  after  story  was  also  written  about  our  curious  little  colony. 

Penton  Baxter  shared  honours  with  the  shoemaker.     Reporters 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  369 

swarmed  over  his  front  porch  and  into  his  house  to  interview  him,  on 
the  triumphant  return  of  the  party  when  they  had  served  their  forty- 
eight  hours. 

Penton  gave  out  interview  after  interview.  And,  to  his  credit 
let  it  be  said,  though  he  revelled  in  the  notice  accorded  him,  he  also 
effected  two  serious  results  from  what  had  begun  as  almost  a  prac- 
tical joke  .  .  he  started  a  fight  on  the  absurd  Blue  Laws  by  focus- 
ing publicity  on  them  .  .  and  he  exposed  the  bad  prison  conditions 
his  unknown  fellow  prisoners  lived  under,  who  had  not  gone  to  the 
workhouse  in  a  jocular  mood  because  of  resurrected  Blue  Laws. 

Jones  was  willing  to  let  the  matter  rest,  as  well  as  were  his  other 
opponents  .  .  but  Baxter  kept  the  fight  going  's  long  as  he  could. 
He  was  accused  of  loving  notoriety.  His  attitude  toward  it  was 
mixed.  He  did  love  notoriety  .  .  he  enjoyed  every  clipping  about 
himself  with  infinite  gusto.  But  he  also  used  publicity  as  a  lever  to 
get  things  done  with,  that  would  otherwise  never  have  been  noticed. 
The  others  were  willing  to  consider  what  had  happened  to  them,  as  a 
private  affair.  Penton  gracelessly  used  that,  and  every  private 
adventure  for  propaganda — turned  it  sincerely  in  the  way  he 
thought  it  might  benefit  people.   .   . 

He  gave  the  papers  a  very  bad  poem — The  Prison  Night,  I 
remember  but  one  line  of  it — 

'*The  convict  rasped  his  vermin-haunted  hide." 

"Come,  get  into  the  group;  I  want  the  papers  to  tell  the  public 
about  you,  too,"  he  urged  me,  prophetically,  as  I  stood  on  the  out- 
skirts, while  three  camera  men  were  focusing  on  him,  as  he  stood, 
expectant,  blandly  smiling,  and  vain-glorious. 

"Boys,  I  want  my  friend,  the  poet,  Mr.  John  Gregory,  in  the 
picture,  too." 

"Oh,  all  right!"  they  assented  indifferently,  which  injured  my 
egotism.  But  I  was  too  adroit  to  show  it.  I  still  demurred  with 
mock  modesty.     Penton  would  have  been  franker. 

Finally,  at  his  urgency,  they  snapped  us,  our  arms  about  each 
other's  shoulders. 

In  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  they  were  glad  of  that  picture. 

Our  tennis-playing,  Blue-Law  martyrs,  as  I  have  said,  were  held 
over  night  in  the  workhouse  .  .  or  maybe  two  nights,  I  do  not 


370  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

exactly  remember  which  .  .  and  when  they  came  back  they  were 
full  of  the  privations  of  jail-life,  and  the  degradation  of  the  spirit 
and  mind  suffered  by  prisoners  there.  To  me,  their  attitude  seemed 
rather  tender-foot  and  callow.  It  was  something  that  would  have 
been  accepted  off-handedly  by  me.  I  had  been  in  jail  often,  not  for 
a  cause,  as  I  punned  wretchedly,  but  he-cause.  I  did  not  accord 
hero-worship  to  Penton  when  he  returned,  as  the  women  of  the 
household  did. 

For  a  week  it  quite  reconciled  Hildreth  with  him.  .  . 

But  on  the  first  night  of  his  absence  Hildreth  and  I  took  a  stroll 
together  in  the  moonlight. 

Long  the  three  women  and  myself  had  sat  in  the  library,  while 
I  read  aloud  from  a  MSS.  volume  of  my  poetry,  which  I  intended 
submitting  to  the  Macmillans  soon.  For  Ruth  knew  Mr.  Brett  and 
promised  to  give  me  an  introduction  to  him.  And  I  was  to  make 
a  special  trip  to  the  city  on  the  money  I  had  saved  from  my  weekly 
remittances  .  .  for  Penton  would  not  permit  me  to  spend  a  cent 
for  my  keep  while  I  visited  him.  And  I  had  already  been  with 
him  three  weeks.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

I  read  them  many  love  poems — those  I  had  written  for  Vanna.  .  , 

"Why,"  commented  Hildreth,  "these  verses  sound  like  what  a 
very  callow  youth  would  write,  who  never  had  experience  with  women 
.  .  I  mean  by  that,  intimate  knowledge  of  them." 

I  flushed  and  sat  silent. 

"Some  day,  when  you've  lived  more,"  remarked  Ruth,  "you'll 
write  love-poetry  more  simple,  more  direct." 

*'Though  infinite  ways  He  knows 

To  manifest  His  power, 
God,   when   He  made   your   face, 
Was  thinking  of  a  flower!" 
I  read. 

"There  again  you  have  an  instance  of  what  I  mean  .  .  you  are 
only  rhetoricising  about  love ;  not  partaking  of  its  feelings." 

"But  I  wrote  all  these  poems  about  a  real  girl,"  and  I  told  them 
the  story  of  my  distant  passion  for  Vanna. 

**No  matter you're  a  grown-up  man  who,  as  far  as  knowl- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  371 

edge  of  women  is  concerned,  has  the  heart  of  a  baby,"  observed 
Hildreth. 

— "in  these  days  of  sex-sophistication  a  fine  thing!"  cried  Ruth. 

"Yes,  when  out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  come  quota- 
tions from  Havelock  Ellis  and  Ellen  Key !"  cried  Darrie. 

"Good !    Darrie,  good !"  Hildreth  applauded.  ,  . 

" — time  to  go  to  bed  .  .  here  it's  almost  one  o'clock." 

" — had  no  idea  it  was  so  late.  I  have  a  lot  of  typing  to  do 
to-morrow.  Good  night,  folks !"  and  Ruth  was  off  to  her  room  up- 
stairs. 

"Good-night,  Hildreth, — suppose  you're  going  to  sleep  down  in 
the  little  house !"     It  was  Darrie  who  spoke. 

"Yes,"  answered  Hildreth,  in  a  simple  tone,  "I  will  feel  quite 
safe  there  .  .  Johnnie's  tent  is  only  a  few  yards  away." 

Hildreth  and  Darrie  kissed  each  other  on  the  mouth  tenderly. 

"Good  night,  Johnnie "  and  impulsively  Darrie  stepped  up 

to  me,  took  me  by  the  two  shoulders,  and  kissed  me  also  a  kind 
sisterly  kiss  .  .  I  responded,  abashed  and  awkward. 

A  ripple  of  pleasant  laughter  at  me  from  both  women. 

^'Johnnie's  a  dear,  innocent  boy !"    Darrie. 

"He  makes  me  feel  like  a  mother  to  him !"  said  Hildreth. 

Though  each  of  these  remarks  was  made  without  the  slightest 
colour  of  irony,  I  did  not  like  them  .  .  I  lowered  my  head,  humiliated 
under  them. 

Ever  since  I  had  been  among  them  the  three  women  had  treated 
me  in  the  way  they  act  with  small  boys,  preserving  scarcely  any 
reserve  in  my  presence.  Penton  himself  had  lost  all  his  first  dis- 
quiet. 

Outside — 

"I'll  take  you  as  far  as  the  cottage  .  .  it's  right  on  the  way, 
you  know." 

"All  right,  but  where  are  you  going?" 

"Into  the  kitchen  to  get  a  lantern." 

"The  moon  is  almost  as  bright  as  day.    We  won't  need  it." 

We  stepped  out  into  the  warm,  scented  night.  In  a  mad  flood 
of  silver  the  moon  reigned  high  in  the  sky,  dark  and  bright  with 
the  contours  and  shades  of  its  continents  and  craters,  as  if  nearer 
the  earth  than  it  had  ever  been  before.  .  . 

"This   night   reminds   me   of   those   lines    in   Marlowe's   Doctor 


372  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Faustus,  the  ones  that  follow  after  *Is  this  the  face  that  launched  a 
thousand  ships,  and  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilion?*  which  are, 
to  me,  a  trifle  over-rhetorical  .  .  the  ensuing  lines  are  more  lovely: 

"  'Fair  as  the  evening  air — 

*'  *Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars,'  or  is  it  *ten  thousand 
stars'?" 

Hildreth  turned  her  face  up  to  me.  Her  arm  went  through  mine. 
She  drew  my  arm  close  against  her  body  and  held  it  tight  in  silent 
response  for  a  quiet  interval.  .  . 

"You  are  a  poet  .  .  a  real  poet  .  .  and,"  she  dropped  her  voice, 
"and,  what  is  more,  a  real  man,  too !"  there  was  a  world  of  com- 
passion in  her  voice.  .  . 

** — ^You  remember  Blake's  evening  star — that  *washed  the  dusk 
with  silver?'  " 

"Jesus,  how  beautiful!"  I  cried. 

We  were  standing  in  front  of  her  cottage,  that  darkled  in  the 
trees. 

Suddenly,  roused  by  our  voices,  like  some  sweet,  low,  miraculous 
thing,  a  little  bird  sang  a  few  bars  of  song,  sweet  and  low,  in  the 
bushes  somewhere,  and  stopped.   .   . 

"Hildreth,  don't  let's  go  to  bed  yet."  I  caught  her  arm  in  my 
hands,  "it's  too  beautiful  .  .  to  go  to  bed." 

I  was  trembling  all  over.  •  . 

"Yes,  boy?" 

"Let's— let's  take  a  walk." 


We  went  through  the  little  sleeping  community.  She  clung  to 
my  arm  lightly.  .  . 

"You're  the  first  woman  I  haven't  been  frightened  of,  rather,  have 
felt  at  home  with." 

"You,  who  have  been  a  tramp,  a  worker  all  over  the  country  .  . 
in  big  cities  .  .  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that? " 

"Yes  .  .  yes  .  .  before  God,  it  is  true!  You  don't  think  I'm  a 
fool,  do  you — a  ninny?" 

"No,  on  the  contrary,  I  think  you  are  a  good  man  .  .  that  it  is 
miraculous  .  .  I — I  feel  so  old  beside  you  .  .  how  old  are  you, 
Johnnie?" 

"Twenty-six." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  373 

''Why,  I'm  only  two  years  older  .  .  yet  I  feel  like  your  mother." 

In  the  groves  adjoining  the  colony,  for  a  mile  on  either  side, 
wherever  there  was  a  big  tree,  a  circular  seat  had  been  built  about 
it.    It  was  on  one  of  these  that  we  sat  down,  without  a  word. 

I  laid  my  head  against  Hildreth's  shoulder.  Soothingly  she  began 
stroking  my  hair.     With  cool  fingers  she  stroked  it. 

"What  fine  hair  you  have.    It's  as  soft  and  silky  as  a  girl's." 

"I  took  after  my  mother  in  that." 

"What  a  mixture  you  are  .  .  manly  and  strong  .  .  an  athlete, 
yet  sensitive,  so  sensitive  that  sometimes  it  hurts  to  look  at  your 
face  when  you  talk  .  .  you've  suffered  a  lot,  Johnnie." 

"In  curious  ways,  yes." 

"Tell  me  about  yourself.  I  won't  even  whisper  it  in  the  dark, 
when  I'm  alone." 

"I  know  I  can  trust  you,  Hildreth." 

"What  are  you  doing,  boy?" 

"I  want  to  sit  at  your  feet." 

"You  dear  boy." 

"I  feel  quite  humble  .  .  I  don't  want  you  to  see  my  face  when 
I  talk." 

She  drew  my  head  against  her  knees.  Threw  one  arm  as  if  pro- 
tectingly  over  my  shoulder. 

"There.    Are  you  comfortable,  boy?" 

"Yes.    Are  you?" 

"Quite  .  .  don't  be  ashamed  .  .  I  know  much  about  life  that  you 
do  not  know  .  .  tell  me  alL" 

So  I  told  her  all  about  myself  .  .  my  ambition  .  .  my  struggles 
.  .  my  morbidity  .  .  my  lack  of  experience  with  girls  and  women.  . 

"And  I  must  have  experience  soon  .  .  it's  obsessing  me  .  .  it 
can't  last  this  way  much  longer  .  .  I  shall  go  mad." 

And  I  rehearsed  to  her  a  desperate  resolve  I  had  made  .  .  to  find 
a  woman  of  the  streets,  in  New  York,  when  I  went  in,  the  ensuing 
week  .  .  and  force  myself,  no  matter  how  I  loathed  it 

I  buried  my  head  in  her  lap  and  sobbed  hysterically. 

Then  I  apologised — "forgive  me  if  I  have  been  too  frank !" 

"I  am  a  radical  woman  .  .  Penton  and  I  both  believe  in  the  theory 
of  free  love,  though  we  happen  to  be  married  .  .  what  you  have 


374  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

told  me  is  all  sweet  and  natural  to  me  .  .  only — you  must  not  do 
what  you  say  you'll  do — in  New  York ! " 

*'I  must,  or "  and  I  paused,  to  go  on  in  a  lower,  embarrassed 

voice.  .  .  "Do — do  you  know  what  else  I  thought  of — dreamed 
of ? 

"In  Paris — I  understand — men  live  with  women  as  a  matter  of 
course 

*'You  see "  I  was  hot  with  shame  to  the  very  ears,  "you  see — 

there,  you  know, — I  thought  if  I  went  there  I  would  find  some  pretty 
little  French  girl  that  I  would  take  to  live  with  me  .  in  some 
romantic  attic  in  the  Montmartre  district  .  .  and  we  would  be 
happy  together  .  .  and  I  would  be  grateful,  so  grateful,  to  her!" 

"Why  you're  the  Saint  Francis  of  the  Radicals,"  Hildreth 
exclaimed. 

"Please  don't  make  fun  of  me  .  .  I  suppose  you  think  me  very 
foolish." 

"Foolish?  .  .  No,  I  think  you  have  a  very  beautiful  soul.  I  wish 
every  man  had  a  soul  like  that." 

She  took  my  head  in  her  hands  and  kissed  me  on  the  brow, 

"Hildreth,  only  tell  me  what  I  am  to  do?" 

"I  do  not  know  .  .  theoretically  I  believe  in  freedom  in  sex  •  •  I 
wish  to  God  I  could  help  you." 

"Why  can't  you?" 

"Hush,  you  do  not  know  what  you're  asking !" 

*'By  the  living  Christ,  I  only  know  that  I  would  crawl  after  you, 
and  kiss  your  holiest  feet  before  all  the  world,  if  you  helped  me." 

*'Now  I  understand  what  Lecky  meant  when  he  spoke  of  the 
sacrificial  office  of  a  certain  type  of  women  .  .  I  only  wish  -  ,  but 
come,  we  must  go." 

I  was  on  my  feet  beside  her,  as  she  rose. 

"Yes,  we  had  better  go  home,"  I  spoke  quietly,  though  my  heart 
pumped  as  if  I  had  taken  strychnine. 

I  put  my  arms  about  her,  to  steady  her  going,  for  she  stumbled. 

"Why,  Hildreth,  dearest  woman,  you're  trembling  all  over,  what's 
the  matter?  .  .  have  I — I  frightened  you  with  my  wild  talk?" 

"Never  mind  .  .  no,  take  your  arm  away  .  .  Let  me  walk  alone 
a  minute  and  I'll  be  all  right  .  .  I'll  be  all  right  in  a  minute  .  .  it's 
just  turned  a  trifle  chilly,  that's  all." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  875 

**Hush!"  going  down  the  path  by  the  big  house,  Hildreth 
stopped,  hesitated.  "I'm — I'm  not  going  to  the  little  cottage  to- 
night." 

"Then  I'll  say  good-night !" 

^'No,  come  on  in  and  we'll  snealc  out  to  the  kitchen  and  find  some- 
thing to  eat  .   .   aren't  you  hungry?" 

"A  little  bit.  But  I'm  afraid  we  might  wake  Ruth  and  Darrie 
up." 

We  tip-toed  in.  Hildreth  searching  for  the  matches,  knocked  the 
wash-basin  to  the  floor.    We  stood  hushed  like  mice. 

"Who's  down  there  ?"  asked  Darrie's  voice,  with  a  dash  of  hysteria 
in  it  .  .  of  hysteria  and  fright. 

"Damn  it,  there's  Darrie  waked  up." 

*'Such  a  clatter  would  wake  anyone  up !" 

"Who's  there,  I  say!" 

"It's  only  me,  Darrie  .  .  I  got  hungry  in  the  night  and  came 
up  to  the  house  to  snatch  a  bite  to  eat." 

"Oh  .  .  I'm  coming  down  to  join  you,  then." 

We  saw  Darrie  standing  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  her  eyes  lumin- 
ous and  wide  with  emotion. 

She  stood,  rosy-bodied,  in  her  night-dress,  which  was  transparent 
in  the  light  of  the  lamp  she  carried.   .   . 

*' Johnnie's  here,  too !"  warned  Hildreth. 

"Oh !"  cried  Darrie,  and  turned  back,  to  re-appear  in  her  kimono. 

"I'm  sorry  we  waked  you  up.  But  I  knocked  that  infernal  basin 
down  off  the  sink." 

"You  didn't  wake  me.  I  was  awake  already.  I  haven't  slept  a 
wink." 

"Neither  have  we !"  I  responded. 

"What?"  Darrie  asked  me  in  so  startled,  impulsive  a  manner 
that  Hildreth  and  I  laughed  .  .  and  she  laughed  a  little,  too  .  . 
and  then  grew  grave  again.   .  . 

"It  was  such  a  beautiful  night,  Johnnie  and  I  took  a  walk  in  the 
moonlight." 

Darrie  looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  us  with  a  wide,  staring 
look. 

"You  needn't  look  that  way,  Darrie!" 

"Please,  please,  Hildreth!" 

"You  and  Penton  have  taken  walks  in  the  moonlight." 


376  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Hildreth,  dear,  I'm  not  rebuking  you  .  .  and  you  know  my 
walks  with  Penton  are  all  right,  are  harmless." 

"Yes,  I  know  they  are  .  .  but  you  mustn't  rebuke  me,  either." 

"I  wasn't  rebuking  either  you  or  Johnnie  .  .  it  isn't  that  I'm 
thinking  of  at  all  .  .  but  everything  has  been  so  uncanny  here 
to-night  .  .  I  could  not  sleep  .  .  every  little  rustle  of  curtains, 
every  creak  or  motion  in  the  whole  house  vibrated  through  me  .  . 
something's  going  to  happen  to  someone." 

"You're  only  upset  because  Penton's  in  jail,"  I  explained. 

"No,  that's  not  it  .  .  that's  nothing  compared  to  this  feeling  .  . 
this  premonition " 

"Come  on,  let's  make  some  coffee  .  .  in  the  percolator." 

"You  girls  sit  down  and  I'll  make  it.  I've  been  a  cook  several 
times  in  my  career." 

Someone  was  knocking  about  in  the  dark,  upstairs.  We  heard  a 
match  struck.  .  . 

"There,  we've  waked  Ruth,  too." 

"What's  the  matter  down  there?"  Ruth  was  calling. 

"Come  on  down  and  join  us,  Ruth, — we're  having  a  cup  of  coffee 
a-piece." 

*'It's  only  two  o'clock  .  .  what's  everybody  doing  up  so  early.? 
Has  Penton  come  back?" 

**No  .  .  but  do  come  down  and  join  us,"  I  replied. 

"I  tell  you,  I  thought  it  was  burglars  at  first,  and  I  was  going 
to  the  drawer  in  Penton's  room  and  get  out  his  six-shooter." 
"Does  Penton  keep  a  gun?"  I  asked. 
*'Yes  .  .  it's  the  one  he  bought  to  shoot  the  mongrel  dog  with." 

We  ate  some  cold  roast  beef  sandwiches  and  drank  our  coffee. 

Hildreth  stayed  in  the  big  house,  not  going  down  the  path 
with  me. 

I  went  silently  to  my  tent.  It  was  blowing  a  little  now.  The  moon 
was  surging  along  behind  little,  grey,  running  clouds.  It  would 
rain  before  daylight.  A  haunted  shiver  swept  through  my  back  as 
I  stole  along  the  path.  I  repeated  poetry  rapidly  aloud  to  crowd 
out  uncanny  imaginings.  I  had  a  silly,  sick  impulse  to  run  back 
to  the  big  house  and  sleep  on  the  couch  in  the  library. 

But  I  forced  myself  on.    "If  you're  ever  going  to  be  a  man,  you'd 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  377 

better  begin  now,"  I  muttered  to  myself,  as  if  talking  to  another 
person. 

In  my  tent  .  .  I  lit  the  lamp.  I  removed  all  hanging  objects 
because  their  lurching  shadows  sent  shivers  of  apprehension 
through  me.  .  . 

"That  damned  coffee — wish  I  hadn't  drunk  it." 

The  wind  and  rain  came  up  like  a  phantom  army.  It  sang  in  the 
trees,  it  drummed  musically  on  my  tent.     It  comforted  me. 

The  floodgates  of  my  mind,  my  inspiration,  broke  loose.  I  rose 
to  my  super-self.  And  now  if  a  horrible  thing  had  stood  grey  at 
my  elbow,  unmoved,  I  would  have  looked  it  unflinchingly  in  the  sight- 
less visage.  .  . 

My  pencil  raced  over  paper  .  .  raced  and  raced. 

"Here  it  comes  .  .  just  like  your  good  rain,  so  kind  to  earth  .  . 
Oh,  beautiful  God,  I  thank  Thee  for  making  me  a  poet,"  I  prayed, 
tears  streaming  down  my  face. 

The  second  act  of  Judas  stood  complete,  as  if  it  had  written  itself. 

I  rose.     It  seemed  hardly  an  hour  had  passed. 

It  took  me  a  few  minutes  to  work  the  numbness  out  of  my  legs. 
How  they  ached !  I  stepped  out  of  the  tent-door  like  a  drunken 
man  .  .  fell  on  my  face  in  some  bushes  and  bled  from  several 
scratches.  The  blare  of  what  was  full  daylight  hurt  my  eyes.  I 
had  been  writing  on,  entranced,  by  unneeded  lamp,  when  unheeded 
day  burned  about  me. 

Stepping  inside  again,  I  saw  by  my  Ingersoll  that  it  was  twelve 
o'clock.  I  fell  into  a  deep  sleep,  still  dressed  .  .  I  was  so  exhausted. 
Usually  I  slept  absolutely  naked. 

These  were  the  things  that  happened  while  Penton  was  in  jail 
because  he  played  tennis  on  Sunday. 

Now  I  was  part  and  parcel  of  the  household,  no  longer  a  stranger- 
friend  on  a  visit.  Though  Penton's  jail-experience  did  not  thrill 
me,  the  continued  thronging  of  reporters  did,  as  did  Baxter's  rag- 
ing desire  to  do  good  for  the  poor  ordinary  prisoners  in  jail.  He 
had  got  at  several  of  them  who  had  received  a  raw  deal  in  the 
courts,  and  was  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  bring  redress  to  them. 


378  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

He  gave  interviews,  dictated  articles  .  .  the  State  officials  were 
furious.  "What's  the  matter  with  the  fellow?  What's  he  bother 
about  the  other  fellows  for,  he  ought  to  be  glad  he's  not  in  their 
shoes!".  . 

In  agitations  for  the  public  good,  in  humanitarian  projects, 
Baxter  was  indeed  a  great  man  .  .  I  loomed  like  a  pigmy  beside  him. 

•  •••••• 

Darrie  and  I  in  dialogue: 

She  met  me  on  the  path,  as  I  was  proceeding  toward  the  big  house. 
She  carried  Carpenter's  Lovers  Coming  of  Age  in  her  hand.  She 
was  dressed  daintily.  Her  brown  eyes  smiled  at  me,  and  a  rich 
dimple  broke  in  her  cheek. 

But  Darrie  was  taller  than  Hildreth,  and  I  like  small  women  best ; 
perhaps  because  I  am  myself  so  big. 

*'Don't  go  up  to  the  house,  Johnnie." 

*'I  want  a  book  from  the  library." 

*'Hildreth  and  Penton  are  there.    Hildreth  is  having  a  soul-state." 

"A  what?"  I  laughed. 

*'0h,  she  thinks  something  is  the  matter  with  her  soul,  and,  for 
the  three  hundredth  time  since  I've  known  them,  Penton  and  she  are 
discussing  their  lives  together." 

"I  don't  see  anything  to  jest  about  in  that." 

"I'm  tiring  of  it  .  .  if  Hildreth  has  a  tooth-ache,  or  anything 
that  the  rest  of  us  women  accept  as  a  matter  of  course,  she  runs 
to  Mubby,  as  she  calls  him  .  .  and,  as  if  it  were  some  abstruse, 
philosophical  problem,  they  talk  on,  hour  after  hour  .  .  like  German 
metaphysics,  there's  no  end  to  it.  They've  been  at  it  since  ten  and 
they'll  go  on  till  four,  if  they  follow  precedents  .  .  Penton  takes 
Hildreth  too  seriously." 

"You  talk  as  if  you,  you  were  jealous  of  Hildreth  and  in  love 
with  Penton." 

"It's  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  I  love  them  both,  and  I  want 
to  see  them  happy  together." 

"You  see,  Darrie,  neither  you  nor  I  are  married,  and  neither  of 
us  knows  anything  about  sex,  except  in  the  theory  of  the  books 
we've  read — how  can  we  judge  the  troubles  of  a  man  and  woman 
who  are  married?" 

"There's  a  lot  in  what  you  say." 

"I  believe  it  would  be  better  if  we  both  cleared  out  and  left  them 
to  fight  this  out  alone." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  3T9 

"Perhaps  it  would." 

•  •••••• 

"Darrie,  Oh,  Darrie! — ^want  to  come  for  a  walk  with  Hildreth 
and  me?" 

So  the  three  set  off  together,  leaving  me  and  Ruth  alone. 

•        .  «  •  •  •  •  • 

Ruth  and  I  had  just  settled  down  to  a  discussion  of  the  writing 
of  narrative  poetry,  how  it  was  done,  and  the  reason  why  it  was 
no  longer  customary  with  the  poets  to  write  longer  stories  out  of 
real  life,  like  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales, — when  we  heard  a  rust- 
ling as  of  some  wild  thing  in  the  bushes  beside  the  house,  and  here 
came  Hildreth  breaking  through,  her  eyes  blazing,  her  hair  down, 
her  light  walking  skirt  that  she  had  slipped  on  over  her  bloomers 
torn  by  catching  on  thorns. 

She  staggered  into  the  open,  swept  us  with  a  blazing  glance  as 
if  we  had  done  something  to  her,  and  hurried  on  down  the  path 
toward  the  little  house  where  Penton  had  written  in  quiet  till  she 
had  strangely  routed  him  out  and  taken  its  occupancy  for  herself. 

"Hildreth!"  I  leaped  to  my  feet,  starting  after  her,  "Hildreth 
what's  the  matter?" 

I  had  put  all  thought  of  narrative  poetry  out  of  my  head. 

"Don't  follow  her,"  advised  Ruth,  in  a  low,  controlled  voice,  "it's 
best  to  let  her  alone  when  she  acts  like  that  .  .  she'll  have  it  out, 
and  come  back,  smiling,  in  an  hour  or  so." 

I  plunged  on.  Ruth  ran  after  me,  catching  me  by  the  shoulder 
from  behind. 

"Listen  to  me.  Take  my  advice  and  keep  out  of  this — Johnnie!" 
she  called  my  name  with  a  tender  drop  in  her  voice. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  her  tell-tale  pronouncement  of  my  name  I 
might  have  listened  to  her  .  .  but  that  made  me  angry,  and  it  ran 
through  my  mind  how  she  and  Penton  had  fatuously  arranged  my 
marrying  her.  .  . 

I  ran  after  Hildreth.  She  slammed  the  door  when  I  was  so  close 
upon  her  that  the  wind  of  its  shutting  went  against  my  face  like 
a  blow. 

I  found  myself  on  my  knees  by  the  door. 

"Let  me  in,"  I  said  through  the  key-hole,  for  the  door  was  locked ; 
she  had  thrown  the  bolt  on  the  inside. 

"Go  away,  Johnnie,  I  want  to  be  alone." 


380  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Hildreth,  dearest  woman,  do  let  me  in.  It  hurts  my  heart  to 
see  you  so  suffer  so." 

"I  don't  want  to  see  anybody.     I  want  to  die." 

"I'll  come  in  the  window." 

I  was  at  the  window  madly.  I  caught  it.  It  was  locked.  But  I 
pulled  it  up  like  a  maniac.  The  lock,  rusty,  flew  off  with  a  zing! 
The  window  crashed  up.     I  tumbled  in  at  one  leap. 

My  whole  life  was  saying,  "this  is  your  woman,  your  first  and 
only  woman — go  where  she  is  and  take  her  to  yourself !" 

That  avalanche  of  me  bursting  in  without  denial,  struck  little 
Hildreth  Baxter  dumb  with  interest.  She  had  been  kneeling  by 
her  bed,  sobbing.     Now  she  rose  and  was  sitting  on  it. 

"Well?"  and  she  smiled  wanly,  looking  at  me  with  fear  and  a 
twinkle  of  amusement,  and  intrigued  interest,  all  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  on  her  face 

*'l  couldn't  stand  seeing  you  suffer,  Hildreth.  I  had  to  come  in. 
And  you  wouldn't  unlock  the  door  .  .  what  has  gone  wrong.''" 

"It's  Darrie !— " 

"But  you  all  three  started  on  your  hike  like  such  a  happy  family, 
and " 

"For  God's  sake  don't  think  I'm  jealous  of  Darrie  .  .  I'm  only 
wild  about  the  way  she  encourages  Mubby  to  talk  over  his  troubles 
with  her — and  tell  her  about  him  and  me,  asking  her  advice  .  ,  as  if 
she  could  give  any  advice  worth  while 

"They  began  to  talk  and  talk  about  me  just  as  if  I  were  a  labora- 
tory specimen.  .  . 

"Damn  this  laboratory  marriage!  damn  this  laboratory  love! 

"Penton  experiments,  and  Penton  experiments  .  .  on  his  cat,  his 
dog,  himself,  me — you,  if  you'd  let  him  .  .  everybody !  let  him  marry 
Humanity  if  he  loves  it  so  much." 

"But  what  did  you  do?" 

"I  caught  myself  running  away  from  them,  and  sobbing." 

"And  what  did  they  do?" 

"  'Hildreth,  for  God's  sake !'  Mubby  called,  Vhat's  the  matter 
now?'  in  that  bland,  exasperating  tone  of  his, — that  injured,  self- 
righteous,  I'm-sacrificing-myself-for-mankind  tone " 

—I  had  to  laugh  at  her  exact  mimicry.  ,  . 

I  stroked  her  hair.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  381 

"Pm  glad  you  came  to  Eden,  John  Gregory.  You  might  be  a 
poet,  but  you  have  some  human  sense  in  you,  too.   .  . 

"Oh,  you  don't  know  what  I've  been  through,"  then,  femininely, 
"poor,  poor  Mubby,  he's  been  through  a  lot,  too." 

Her  tears  began  to  flow  again.  I  sat  beside  her  on  the  bed.  I 
put  my  arm  about  her  and  drew  her  to  me.  I  kissed  her  tear-wet 
mouth.  The  taste  of  her  ripe  sweet  mouth  with  the  salt  of  her  tears 
wet  on  her  lips  was  very  good  to  me.   .   . 

In  a  minute  unexpectedly  she  began  returning  my  kisses  .  .  hun- 
grily .  .  her  eyes  closed  .  .  breathing  deeply  like  one  in  a  trance.  .  . 

**Go  up  to  the  house  now,  Johnnie,  my  love  .  .  go,  so  Mubby  won't 
be  suspicious  of  us  .  .  I  want  to  stay  here  .  .  leave  the  blinds  drawn 
as  they  are.  .  . 

"You  have  been  so  gentle,  so  sweet." 

"Hildreth  .  .  listen  to  me  .  .  this  has  been  the  greatest  day  in  ray 
life,  will  always  be !    If  I  died  now,  I  would  go  to  death,  singing.  ,  . 

*'You're  the  most  wonderful  woman  in  the  world.  .  . 

*'I  want  you  to  be  mine  forever.  .  . 

"I  know  what  it  all  means  now.  .  .  . 

"It's  like  Niagara,  sweetheart .  .  one  hears  so  much  of  it  .  .  expects 
so  much  .  .  that  it  seems  disappointing,  the  first  actuality.   .  . 

*'Then  afterward,  it's  more  than  any  dream  ever  dreamed  of  what 
it  would  be! 

"I  want  to  work  for  you.  .  . 

"I  want  to  let  you  walk  all  over  me  with  your  little  feet.  •  . 

*'I  want  you  to  kill  me,  sweetheart.  .  . 

*'I  want  to  die  for  you.  .  . 

"Hildreth,  I  love  you ! 

"I'll  tell  Penton  .  .  I'll  tell  everybody —  *I  love  Hildreth !  I  love 
Hildreth!'" 

** Johnnie,  my  own  sweet  darling,  my  own  dear,  pure-hearted,  mad, 
young  poet.  .   . 

"Don't  talk  that  way.  .  . 
"Come  to  me  again.  .  . 

"Penton  must  not  know.    Not  yet.    You  must  let  me  tell  him. 


382  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"It  is  my  place  to  tell  him,  sweetest  of  men,  my  darling  boy.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

*'Go  to  your  tent. 

"He'd  see  it  in  your  eyes  now** 

**No,  I  won't  go  to  my  tent.    I'll  go  right  up  to  the  house. 

•  •••••• 

"If  he  says  anything  to  me  I'll  kill  him, 

*'I'm  a  man  now. 

"I'll  fight  him  or  anybody  you  want  me  fo." 

•  ••«.•• 

These  were  the  words  we  said,  or  left  unsaid.     I  am  even  yet  too 
confused  to  remember  the  exact  details  of  that  memorable  time. 
V     For  I  was  re-born  then,  into  another  life. 

Is  there  anyone  who  can  remember  his  birth? 

I  returned  to  my  tent  in  a  blissful  daze. 

I  had  not  the  least  feeling  of  having  betrayed  a  friend. 

The  only  problem  that  now  confronted  us  was  divorce !  I  would 
ask  Penton  to  divorce  Hildreth,  and  then  Hildreth  and  I  would 
marry. 

But  why  even  that?  Was  not  this  the  greatest  opportunity  in 
the  world  for  Hildreth  and  me  to  put  to  practical  test  our  theories  .  . 
proclaim  ourselves  for  Free  Love, — as  Mary  Wollstonecraft  and 
the  philosopher  Godwin  had  done,  a  century  or  so  before  us? 

The  following  day  Ruth  and  I  ate  breakfast  together,  alone.  I 
had  behaved  with  unusual  sedateness,  had  showed  an  aplomb  I  had 
never  before  evidenced.  Full  manhood,  belated,  had  at  last  come 
to  me. 

With  more  than  usual  satisfaction  I  drank  my  coffee,  holding  the 
cup  with  my  hands  around  it  like  a  child  .  .  warming  my  fingers, 
which  are  nearly  always  cold  in  the  morning.  .  . 

Then,  while  Ruth  sat  opposite  me,  eyeing  me  curiously,  I  began 
to  sing,  half-aloud,  to  myself. 

A  silence  fell.    We  exchanged  very  few  words. 

And  it  was  our  custom,  when  together,  Ruth  and  I,  to  hold  long 
discussions  concerning  the  methods  and  technique  of  the  English 
poets,  especially  the  earlier  ones. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  383 

This  morning  Baxter's  secretary  rose  and  left  part  of  her  break- 
fast uneaten,  hurrying  into  the  house  as  if  to  avoid  something  which 
she  had  seen  and  dreaded. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  o 

I  ate  a  long  time,  dreaming. 

Darrie  came  out,  followed  immediately  by  Daniel.  Daniel  was 
in  an  obstreperous  mood  .  .  he  cried  out  that  I  must  be  his  "telegraph 
pole,"  that  he  would  be  a  lineman,  and  climb  me.  I  felt  an  affection 
for  him  that  I  had  not  known  before.  I  played  with  him,  letting 
him  climb  up  my  leg. 

He  finished,  a-straddle  my  shoulders.  I  reached  up  and  sat  him 
still  higher,  on  my  head.  And  he  waved  his  arms  and  shouted,  as  if 
making  signals  to  someone  far  off. 

Darrie  laughed. 

*'Which  would  you  rather  have,  a  son  or  a  daughter.'"'  she 
asked  me. 

"I  don't  know,"  I  replied,  letting  Daniel  slide  down,  *'but  I  think 
I'd  rather  have  a  daughter  .  .  the  next  generation  will  see  a  great 
age  of  freedom  for  women  .  .  feminism.  .  . 

"Then  it  would  be  a  grand  thing,  too,  to  have  a  beautiful  daughter 
to  go  about  with  .  .  and  I  would  be  old  and  silver-haired  and  benig- 
nant-looking .  .  and  people  would  say,  as  they  saw  the  two  of  us : 

"  'There  goes  the  poet,  John  Gregory,  and  his  daughter  .  .  isn't 
she  a  beautiful  girl !' 

"And  she  would  be  a  great  actress." 

Penton  came  forth  from  the  big  house  .  .  he  poised  tentatively 
like  a  queer  bird  on  the  verge  of  a  long  flight  .  .  then  he  wavered 
rapidly  down  the  steps. 

" — slept  late!  .  .  has  the  mail  come  yet?  .  .  where's  Ruth.''" 

"Isn't  she  in  the  house?"  I  queried. 

"I  saw  her  stepping  out  at  the  back  door  a  minute  ago"  .  .  said 
Darrie. 

"We  had  breakfast  together  .  .  I  .  .  .'* 

"I  hope  she  doesn't  stay  away  long  .  .  I  have  an  article  on  Blue 
Laws  as  a  Reactionary  Weapon,  that  I  want  to  dictate  for  a 
magazine  .  .  — one  of  her  moods,  I  suppose!" 

I  looked  the  little,  large-browed  man  over  almost  impersonally.  I 
saw  him  as  from  far  away.     He  came  out  very  clear  to  me. 


384  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

I  found  a  profound  pity  for  him  waking  in  my  heart,  together 
with  a  sort  of  contempt. 
"And  Where's  Hildreth?" 
"Not  up  yet  I  presume,"  replied  Darrie. 

I  excused  myself  and  hurried  back  to  my  tent  .  .  where,  instead  of 
settling  down  to  work  on  the  third  act  of  my  play,  I  lay  prone  on 
my  cot,  day-dreaming  of  the  future.  How  beautiful  it  would  be, 
now  that  I  had  at  last  found  my  life-mate! 

I  thanked  God  that  nothing  trivial  was  in  my  heart  to  mar  the 
stupendousness  of  my  love,  my  first  real  passion  for  a  woman! 

•  «••«•• 

"Johnnie!" 

I  leaped  alert.     It  was  Hildreth,  at  my  tent  door.  .  . 

"Get  up,  you  lazy  boy  .  .  surely  you  haven't  been  sleeping  all 
this  time?" 

"No,  darling." 

*'I  ate  my  breakfast  all  alone,"  she  remarked,  in  an  aggrieved 
tone,  "where's  Darrie  and  Mubby  and  Ruth.?" 

"God  knows !    I  don't — and  I  don't  care !" 

"You  needn't  be  peevish!" 

"Peevish?  — as  long  as  you  are  with  me  I  don't  care  if  all  the 
rest  of  humanity  are  dead." 

I  stepped  out  beside  her.    We  stood  locked  in  a  long  embrace. 

She  drew  back,  with  belated  thoughtfulness.   .   . 

*'We  ought  to  be  more  careful  .  .  so  near  the  house." 

*'I'm  so  glad  you're  in  the  little  house  near  my  tent,  Hildreth." 

"But  we  can't  be  together  there  much  .  .  it's  too  near  the  big 
house." 

"What  shall  we  do,  then?" 

"There's  the  fields  and  the  woods  .  .  miles  of  them  .  .  the  whole 
outside  world  for  us." 

"I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  go  strolling  together  .  .  the  rest 
are  all  abroad  somewhere,  too  .  .  but  we  must  be  careful,  Johnnie, 
very  careful." 

"Careful— why?" 

"Because  of  Mubby." 

"But  he  doesn't  love  you  any  more?" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  385 

"I'm  not  so  sure  about  that  .  .  I'm  not  so  sure  about  anything." 

I  never  saw  the  world  so  beautiful  as  on  that  day.  I  was  trans- 
lated to  the  veritable  garden  of  Eden.  The  community  had  been 
named  rightly.     I  was  Adam  and  Hildreth  was  my  Eve. 

And  so  it  went  on  for  two  blissful  weeks.  .  . 

If  the  Voice  of  God  had  met  us,  going  abroad  beneath  the  trees, 
I  would  not  have  been  surprised. 

Hildreth  took  her  volume  of  Blake  with  her  on  our  rambles  .  . 
and  we  revelled  in  his  "Songs  of  Experience"  as  well  as  "Songs  of 
Innocence";  and  we  were  moved  deeply  by  the  huge,  cloudy  gran- 
deur of  his  prophetic  books.   .   . 

Why  could  it  not  go  on  forever  thus  ?  eternal  summer,  everlasting 
love  in  its  first  rosy  flush?  .  . 

Hildreth  was  very  wise  and  very  patient  with  one  who  was  as 
yet  a  mere  acolyte  in  love's  ways  and  uses  .  .  she  taught  me  many 
things,  and  I  adored  her  for  it — as  little  by  little,  day  by  day,  she 
brought  me  to  the  full  stature  of  my  manhood.  .  . 

Of  course  the  two  other  women  of  the  household  immediately 
sensed  what  was  happening.  But  Penton  remained  pathetically 
blind.  .  . 

What  an  incredible  man!  A  mole  would  have  gotten  a  glimmer 
of  the  gradually  developing  change. 

With  bravado  I  acted  my  part  of  the  triangular  drama  .  .  but 
Hildreth  carried  off  her  part  with  an  easiness,  a  femininely  delicate 
boldness,  that  compelled  my  utmost  admiration  .  .  she  even  threw 
suspicious  Ruth  and  Darrie  off  the  scent — at  times. 

The  night  of  the  performance  of  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  I 
shall  never  forget  .  .  Hildreth  as  Titania  in  her  green  tights  .  .  1 
sat  in  the  back  (she  would  not  allow  me  in  the  front  because  it 
might  fluster  her,  she  pleaded)  and  enjoyed  a  sense  of  blissful  owner- 
ship in  her,  as  she  glided  about,  through  the  Shakespearean  scenes  .  . 
— such  a  sense  of  ownership  that  it  ran  through  my  veins  with  a 
full  feeling,  possessed  my  entire  body.  .  . 

Who  was  this  little,  alien  man,  Penton  Baxter,  who  also  dared 
claim  her  possession!  .  . 

Nonchalantly  and  with  an  emotion  of  inner  triumph  I  let  him 


386  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

walk  homeward  with  Hildreth,  while  I  paced  along  with  Ruth  and 
Darrie. 

Let  him  congratulate  her  now  on  her  triumph  .  .  that  she  had 
had,  as  Titania,  there  under  the  wide  heaven  of  stars,  in  our  outdoor 
theatre  .  .  in  the  midst  of  the  Chinese  lanterns  that  swayed  in  the 
slight  breaths  of  summer  air.   .  . 

Later  on,  when  she  was  warm  in  my  arms,  I  would  congratulate 
her  .  .  — tell  her  she  was  greater  than  Bernhardt  .  .  than  Duse  her- 
self! .  .  tell  her  every  incredible  thing  that  lovers  hold  as  mere, 
commonplace  truths. 

•  •••••• 

Jones  had  acquitted  himself  wonderfully  as  Bottom  .  .  roaring 
like  any  suckling  dove  .  .  putting  real  philosophic  comedy  in  his 
part  .  .  to  the  applause  of  even  the  elder  Grahame,  who,  to  do  him 
credit,  was  not  such  a  bad  sport,  after  all. 

*' Johnnie,  we  are  having  a  sing  to-night  .  .  there'll  be  a  full  moon 
up.  I  have  informed  the  committee  that  you  wjU  read  a  few  of 
your  poems  by  the  camp-fire." 

" — the  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  it,"  I  replied,  concealing  my  pride 
in  the  invitation,  under  show  of  being  disgruntled.  .  . 

That  was  Penton's  way,  arranging  things  first,  telling  you  after- 
ward. 

"But  you  will  do  it?     I  have  said  you  would!'* 

"Yes,  Penton,  if  you  wish  me  to!" 

•  •••••• 

Hildreth  was  always  insistent  on  my  strength  .  .  my  greyhound 
length  of  limb,  my  huge  chest  .  .  she  stood  up  and  pounded  on  my 
chest  once.  .  . 

"Oh,  why  do  I  pick  out  a  poor  poet,  and  not  a  millionaire,  for  a 
lover !" 


There  grew  up  between  us  a  myth  .  .  we  were  living  in  cave- 
days  .  .  she  was  my  cave-woman  .  .  I  was  her  cave-man.  .  . 

As  I  came  to  her  in  my  bath-robe  (for  now,  bolder  with  seeming 
immunity,  we  threw  caution  aside,  and  met  often  in  the  little 
house) 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  387 

As  I  came  to  her  in  my  bath-robe,  unshaven,  once  ,  .  she  called 
me  her  Paphnutius  .  .  and  she  was  my  Thais  .  .  and  she  told  me 
Anatole  France's  story  of  Thais. 

But  the  cave-legend  of  our  love  .  .  in  a  previous  incarnation  .  . 
was  what  spelled  her  most  .  .  she  doted  on  strength  .  .  cruel,  sheer, 
brute  strength.  .  . 

That  I  could  carry  her,  lift  her  high  up  with  ease,  toss  her  about, 
rejoiced  her  to  the  utmost.  .  . 

I  caught  her  up  in  my  arms,  pleasing  this  humour,  tossing  her 
like  a  ball  .  .  till  my  muscles  were  as  sore  as  if  I  had  fought  through 
the  two  halves  of  a  foot-ball  game.  .  . 

Out  of  all  this  play  between  us  there  grew  a  series  of  Cave  Poems. 

One  of  them  I  set  aside  to  read  at  the  sing,  beside  the  camp-fire. 


They  had  chorused  Up  With  the  Bonnet  for  Bonny  Dundee 
and  You  Take  the  Highway  .  . 

There  ran  a  ripple  of  talk  while  they  waited  for  me. 

In  the  red  glow  of  the  camp-fire  I  towered  over  the  stocky  little 
husband  as  he  introduced  me.  Hildreth  was  sitting  there  .  .  I 
must  make  a  good  impression  before  my  mate.  All  I  saw  was  she — 
too  patently,  I  fear. 

I  went  through  poem  after  poem,  entranced  with  the  melody  of 
my  verse  .  .  mostly  delicate,  evanescent  stuff  .  .  like  this  one.  .  . 

"The  Emperor  to  His  Love 

**I've  a  green  garden  with  a  grey  wall  'round 
Where  even  the  wind's  foot-fall  makes  no  sound; 
There  let  us  go  and  from  ambition  flee. 
Accepting  love's  brief  immortality. 
Let  other  rulers  hugely  labour  still 
Beneath  the  burden  of  ambition's  ill 
Like  caryatids  heaving  up  the  strain 
Of  mammoth  chambers,  till  they  stoop  again.  .  . 
Your  face  has  changed  my  days  to  splendid  dreams 
And  baubled  trumpets,  traffics,  and  triremes ; 
One  swift  touch  of  your  passion-parted  lips 
Is  worth  five  armies  and  ten  seas  of  ships." 


388  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Hildreth's  applause  was  sweet.  My  heart  almost  burst  with 
happiness  within  me,  as  those  tiny  hands,  that  had  run  through  my 
hair  and  been  so  wonderful  with  me  .  .  hands  that  I  had  kissed  and 
fondled  in  secret — ^joined  in  unison  with  Penton's  and  Darrie's  and 
Ruth's  hand-claps. 

"And  now  I  will  finish  with  the  Song  of  Kaa,  the  Cave-Man,"  I 
announced  .  .  it  seemed  that  the  poem  was  not,  after  all,  in  the 
bunch  of  MSS.  I  had  brought  along  with  me.  .  . 

At  last  I  found  it — and  read: 

*'The  Song  of  Kaa 

**Beat  with  thy  club  on  a  hollow  tree 
While  I  chant  the  song  of  Kaa  for  thee: 
I  lived  in  a  cave,  alone,  at  first, 
Till  into  a  neighbouring  valley  I  burst 
Wild  and  bearded  and  seeking  prey, 
And  I  came  on  Naa,  and  bore  her  away.  .  . 
Away  to  my  hole  in  the  crest  of  the  hill. 
Where  I  broke  her  body  to  my  fierce  will.  .  . 


'My  fellow  cave-men,  fell  in  a  rage: 
*What  hast  thou  done.?'  cried  Singh,  the  Sage, 
*For  I  hear  far  off  a  battle-song, 
And  the  tree-men  come,  a  hundred  strong.  .  .  ' 
Long  the  battle  and  dread  the  fight; 
We  hurled  rocks  down  from  our  mountain  height"- 


I  copy  this  from  memory  alone  .  .  Hildreth  has  all  my  cave-poems. 

I  gave  them  to  her,  holding  no  transcripts  of  them 

The  upshot 

"All  of  our  tribe  were  slain  .  .  Naa  and  I  alone  escaped — 

going  far  off 

To  start  another  people  and  clan : 
She,  the  woman,  and  I,  the  man !" 

In  my  love-drunkenness,  I  looked  directly  at  Hildreth  as  I  read 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  389 

the  last  lines  .  .  she  lowered  her  head  and  picked  at  her  sandal.  .  . 
The  applause  was  tumultuous.  .  . 

Penton  Baxter  rose  to  his  feet,  as  chairman  of  the  occasion.  .  . 
*'I'm  sure  we  all  thank  Mr.  Gregory " 


Events  trod  rapidly  on  one  another's  heels.  Though  Penton 
had  gone  on  frequent  walks  with  Darrie,  after  his  day's  work, — 
chiefly  because  Hildreth  had  not  wanted  to  go  on  walks  with  him 
herself,  or  had  not  wanted  to  accompany  them  both — yet  she  and 
I  seized  on  the  precedent  Penton  and  Darrie  had  set,  and  we  were 
abroad  most  of  the  time  .  .  roaming  idyllically  in  the  fields,  the 
woods  .  .  passionate  .  .  mad  with  the  new  love  that  had  come  to  us  .  . 
unseeing,  In  our  absorption  in  each  other's  arms  .  .  praying  with 
devout  lover's  prayers  that  we  were  as  unseen  as  unseeing.   .   . 

We  were  abroad  in  the  fields  so  much  that  even  Penton  himself 
must  notice  it.  .  . 

So  we  developed  the  flimsiest  of  all  flimsy  pretexts  .  .  pretended 
to  be  engrossed,  together,  in  of  all  things,  the  study  of — toadstools 
and  mushrooms  .  .  taking  with  us  Neltje  Blanchan's  book  on  Mush- 
rooms and  Toadstools,  with  its  beautiful  coloured  illustrations  .  . 
and  we  did  learn  a  lot  about  these  queer  vegetations  that  grow 
without  the  need  of  chlorophyll  .  .  entering  into  a  world  of  new 
colours  in  the  vegetable  kingdom  .  .  exquisite  pinks  and  mauves 
and  greys  .  .  blues  .  .  purples  .  .  reds  .  .  russets  .  .  in  the  darkest 
spots  of  the  woods  we  sought  and  found  strange  species  of  these 
marvellous  growths  .  .  that  grow  more  readily  In  the  dark  and 
obscurity,  the  twilights  of  nature,  than  in  the  open  sunlight  of 
green  summer  days.  .  . 


Down  vistas  of  forest  we  often  pursued  each  other  .  .  often  got 
lost  so  that  it  took  hours  for  re-orientation  .  .  once,  for  awhile,  to 
our  great  fright,  we  could  not  re-discover  our  clothes,  that  we  had 
lightly  tossed  aside  on  the  bank  of  a  brook  lost  and  remote, — that 
had  never  before  laved  a  human  body  in  its  singing  recesses  of 
forest  foliage  .  .  for  I  had  been  playing  satyr  to  her  nymph,  pur- 
suing her.  .  . 


390  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

And  each  day  saw  us  a  little  more  reckless,  more  bold  and  open 
in  our  love,  our  passion,  for  each  other. 

•  •••••• 

"How  handsome  love  is  making  you,  my  Paphnutius !" 
I  was  wearing  my  bath-robe,  had  stopped  at  her  cottage  a  moment, 
in  the  morning,  where  she  sat,  in  an  easy  chair,  reading  peace- 
fully. .  .  I  was  on  my  way  for  my  morning  dip  in  a  nearby  brook.  .  . 
My  bath-robe,  that  made  me,  somehow,  feel  so  aristocratic,  so  like 
a  member  of  the  leisure  class  .  .  I  forgot  to  tell  how  I  had  brought 
it  all  the  way  from  Kansas,  together  with  my  MSS. 

As  I  swam  about  in  the  brook,  not  over  four  feet  deep,  I  sang  and 
shouted.     I  had  never  been  so  happy  in  my  life.  .  . 

I  dried  myself  in  the  sun,  using  its  morning  heat  for  a  towel.   .  . 

As  I  sat  there  on  a  rock,  I  heard  a  crackling  of  twigs,  and  Penton 
thrust  his  way  through  the  intervening  branches  to  my  bare  rock 
and  my  bare  self  .  .  I  hastily,  I  do  not  know  why,  put  on  my  bath- 
robe. .  . 

"Hello,  Penton." 

"Good  morning,  Johnnie.  I  felt  you'd  be  down  here  for  your 
morning  bath  .  .  I  came  to  have  a  serious  talk  with  you." 

"Yes?" 

"I  want  you  to  take  calmly  what  I  am  about  to  say !" 

Penton  was  much  impressed  with  my  stories  of  tramp  days  and 
tales  of  adventure  on  land  and  sea,  which  you  may  be  sure  my  sense 
of  the  dramatic  had  encouraged  me  to  lay  on  thick — and  he,  plainly, 
did  not  desire  any  heat  in  the  discussion  which  was  to  follow.  .  . 

"Recently  it  has  come  to  my  attention  that  there  has  been  a  lot 
of  gossip  about  you  and  Hildreth  .  .  your  conduct  together."  He 
drew  his  lips  together  tightly,  settled  himself  for  a  long  siege.   .  . 

"Why,  Penton,"  I  began,  protestingly  and  hypocritically, — I 
had  planned  far  other  and  franker  conduct  in  such  an  emergency — 
but  here  I  was,  deprecating  the  truth 

"Why,  Penton,  God  knows " 

"Never  mind  .  .  if  it  is  true,  I  am  very  sorry  for  you — for  Hil- 
dreth's  sake,  for  yours,  for  mine  .  .  but  I  want  to  warn  you,  if  it  is 
not  true,  to  look  out  .  .  you,  as  a  friend,  owe  me  some  obligations  .  . 
I  have  taken  you  in  here,  accepted  you  as  one  almost  of  my  family, 
and " 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  391 

"But,  Penton,  this  is  unfair,"  I  lied,  "unfair  even  to  suspect 
me " 

"If  it  had  been  anybody  but  you,  Johnnie,  I  would  have  been 
suspicious  weeks  ago  .  .  Oh,  I  know,  Hildreth  .  .  she  is  giving  all  the 
manifestations  .  .  how  her  face  shines,  how  beautiful  she  has  grown, 
as  she  does,  with  a  new  heart  interest !  .  .  and  her  taking  my  little 
cottage  .  .  ousting  me  from  it.  .  . 

"If  it  was  anyone  else,"  and  he  fetched  a  deep  sigh,  with  tears 
standing  in  his  eyes,  leaving  the  sentence  incomplete. 

At  that  moment  I  was  impelled  almost  to  cast  myself  at  his  feet, 
to  confess,  and  beg  forgiveness.  .  . 

"I  want  to  warn  you,"  he  went  on,  "of  Hildreth  .  .  once  before 
this  has  happened  .  .  she  is  a  varietist  by  nature,  as  I  am  essentially 
a  monogamist." 

" — and  the  free  love  idea,  it  was  you  who  taught  her  this, 
brought  her  into  contact  with  Havelock  Ellis,  Ellen  Key,  Rosa  Von 
Mayerreder?" 

"I  deny  that.  I  believe  in  human  freedom  .  .  divorce  .  .  remar- 
riage .  .  but  not  in  extreme  sex-radicalism  .  .  Hildreth  has  misin- 
terpreted me  .  .  the  people  you  mention  are  great  idealists,  but  in 
many  ways  they  go  too  far  .  .  true — I  brought  Hildreth  into  con- 
tact with  these  books ;  but  only  that  she  might  use  her  own  judgment, 
not  accept  them  wholly  and  blindly,  as  she  has  done.  .  ." 

I  looked  at  the  man.  He  was  sincere.  An  incredible,  naive,  almost 
idiotic  purity  shone  in  his  face.   .   . 

Again  I  was  impelled  to  confess.  Again  I  held  my  tongue.  Again 
I  lied. 

"Penton,  what  you  have  just  said  about  you  and  Hildreth 
and  your  lives  together,  I  shall  consider  as  sacred  between  us." 

He  gave  me  his  hand. 

"Promise  me  one  thing,  that  you  will  not  take  Hildreth  as  your 
sweetheart  .  .  be  true  to  our  friendship  first,  Johnnie." 

"Penton,  I  am  only  flesh  and  blood ;  I  will  promise,  if  anything 
happens,  to  tell  you,  ultimately,  the  truth." 

He  looked  at  me  with  close  scrutiny  again,  at  this  ambiguous 
speech. 

"Johnnie,  have  you  told  me  the  absolute  truth?" 

"Yes !"  evading  his  eyes. 


392  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

" — because  there  is  a  wild  strain  in  Hildreth  that  only  needs  a 
little  rousing "     He  paused. 

"Johnnie,"  as  we  walked  away,  "don't  you  think  you  had  better 
pack  up  and  leave?    The  next  time  I  am  going  to  sue  for  a  divorce." 


We  walked  home  arm  in  arm.  I  simulated  so  well  that  it  was 
Baxter  who  begged  pardon  for  even  suspecting  me. 

But  I  felt  like  a  dog.  I,  for  my  part,  determined  to  bid  farewell 
to  Hildreth  that  very  evening,  before  she  retired  for  the  night,  in 
her  cottage — take  train  to  New  York,  and  so  to  Paris,  without 
first  finishing  my  Judas,  as  I  had  intended. 

We  would  bury  forever  in  the  secret  places  of  our  hearts  what 
had  already  happened  between  us  .  .  this  was  my  first  impulse.   .   . 

My  next  was — that  we  should  up  and  run  away  together,  and 
defy  Penton  Baxter  and  the  world. 

Hildreth  could  see  by  the  strangeness  in  my  behaviour,  as  I  came 
into  the  cottage,  to  kiss  her  good-night  .  .  and  stay  a  little  while — a 
new  custom  of  ours,  as  we  grew  bolder — could  see  that  I  had  some- 
thing on  my  mind. 

I  related  to  her  all  that  had  taken  place  between  me  and  Penton 
that  morning.  .  . 

"The  cad,"  she  cried,  "the  nasty  cad,  to  talk  to  you  so  about 
me.  .  .  I  would  have  told  you  myself  because  you  are  my  lover  .  . 
but  he  had  no  right  to  tell  you  .  .  as  far  as  he  has  proof  positive,  you 
are  merely  a  mutual  friend.   .   . 

"But  that's  the  way  with  him.  He  has  mixed  his  own  life  up  so 
that  it  is  all  public,  to  him. 

"Yes,"  she  cried  impetuously  and  passionately  .  .  "it's  true  .  , 
I  have  not  been  faithful  to  him  before.   .   ." 

" — and  you  returned  to  him?  wasn't  that  weak?" 

I  took  her  hands  in  mine,  with  mind  and  soul  made  up  at  last.  .  . 

*'This  time  you  can  go  through  with  it.  Here's  a  man  who  will 
stand  by  you  forever.     I  can  earn  a  living  for  both  of  us,  and " 

"Don't  let's  discuss  the  horrid  old  subject  any  more  to-night.  .  , 
I'm  tired  of  discussing  .  .  as  you  love  me,  read  some  poetry  to  me  .  . 
or  I  shall  scream !" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  393 

**Have  you  ever  read  the  sonnets  of  George  SantayanaS  . .  I  know 
most  of  them  by  heart  .  .  let  me  quote  you  his  best.  .  . 

*0  world,  thou  choosest  not  the  better  part! 
It  is  not  wisdom  to  be  only  wise, 
And  on  the  inward  vision  close  the  eyes, 
But  it  is  wisdom  to  believe  the  heart. 
Columbus  found  a  world,  and  had  no  chart 
Save  one  that  faith  deciphered  in  the  skies 
To  trust  the  soul's  invincible  surmise 
Was  all  his  science  and  his  only  art. 
Our  knowledge  is  a  torch  of  smoky  pine 
That  lights  the  pathway  but  one  step  ahead 
Across  a  void  of  mystery  and  dread. 
Bid,  then,  the  tender  light  of  faith  to  shine 
By  which  alone  the  mortal  heart  is  led 
Unto  the  thinking  of  the  thought  divine!' 

"I  wish  I  had  written  that !"  I  said,  in  a  hushed,  awed  voice,  after 
a  moment's  silence.  .  . 

"Now  kiss  me  good-night  and  go  to  your  tent  .  .  I  feel  restless, 
troubled  in  spirit,  to-night,"  she  said,  continuing: 

"Perhaps  I  have  been  too  harsh  with  Penton.   .   . 

"He  is  steering  on  a  chartless  sea  with  no  compass.   .  . 

*'No  wonder  he,  and  all  radicals  and  pioneers  in  human  thought, 
blunder  ridiculously.  .  . 

"The  conservative  world  has  its  charts,  its  course  well  mapped 
out.   .   . 

"I  suppose  I  am  not  strong  enough,  big  enough,  for  him." 

"Hush!  now  it  is  you  who're  just  talking!"  I  replied. 

"You're  jealous!" 

"By  God,  yes.  I  am  jealous,  though  I  suppose  I  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  it." 

She  sat  in  bed,  propped  up  with  pillows.  She  had  been  reading 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  aloud  to  me.  The  big  green-shaded  reading 
lamp  cast  a  dim  light  that  pervaded  the  room. 


394  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

She  reached  out  both  arms  to  me,  the  wide  sleeves  falling  back 
from  them,  and  showing  their  feminine  whiteness.  .  . 

I  sat  down  beside  her,  caught  her  to  me,  kissed  her  till  she  was 
breathless.  .  . 

"There  .  .  there  .  .  please!     Please!" 

"What!  you're  not  tiring  of  my  kisses.?" 

"No,  dearest  boy,  but  I  have  a  curious  feeling,  I  tell  you  .  , 
maybe  we're  being  watched.  .  ." 

"Nonsense  .  .  he  believes  I  told  him  the  truth." 

And  I  caught  her  in  my  arms  again,  half-reclining  on  the  bed. 

"Sh!"  she  flung  me  off  with  a  sudden  impulse  of  frightened 
strength,  "I  hear  someone." 

"It's  only  the  wind." 

"Quick !  .  .  my  God  !" 

I  snatched  up  a  volume  of  Keats.  It  fell  open  at  "St.  Agnes 
Eve."  I  hurled  myself  into  a  chair  .  .  gathering  my  breath  I  began 
aloud,  as  naturally  as  I  could 

"St.  Agnes'  Eve !  ah,  bitter  chill  it  was ; 
The  owl,  for  all  his  feathers,  was  a-cold ^^ 

At  that  very  instant,  Penton  burst  in  at  the  door. 

He  paused  a  dramatic  moment,  his  back  to  it,  facing  us, 

I  stopped  reading,  in  pretended  astonishment. 

"Well,  Penton?"  acted  Hildreth  languidly.  .  , 

The  look  of  defeat  and  bewilderment  on  the  husband's  face  would 
have  been  comic  if  it  had  not  been  pitiable. 

I  rose,  laying  the  book  down  carefully. 

"I  think  I'll  go  now,  Hildreth  .  .  you  wish  to  see  Penton  alone." 
I  put  all  the  calm  casual  deference  in  my  voice  possible.  I  started 
to  walk  easily  to  the  door. 

"No !  stop !  I  wish  you  to  stay  here,  John  Gregory  .  .  since  you've 
got  yourself  into  this " 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  you  mean  by  'got  yourself  into  this'.'"' 

"Oh,  Gregory,  let's  not  talk  nonsense  any  longer." 

"You  don't  believe  what  I  assured  you  this  morning?" 

*'Johnnie,  it's  not  human  .  .  I  can't  make  myself,  and  I've  tried 
and  tried,  God  knows !" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  395 

"I'd  like  to  know,  for  my  part,  just  what  you  mean,  Penton 
Baxter,  spying  on  me  this  way — ^bursting  in  on  poor  Johnnie  Greg- 
ory and  me  like  a  maniac,  while  we  were  only  reading  poetry  to- 
gether." 

" — reading  poetry  together !"  he  echoed  bitterly,  almost  col- 
lapsing, as  he  went  into  a  chair. 

Again  I  tried  to  make  my  exit. 

"Johnnie,  I  want  you  to  stay.  I  want  to  have  all  this  out  right 
here  and  now,"  snapped  Baxter  decisively. 

"Very  well  .  .  if  you  put  it  that  way." 

" — a  nice  way  to  treat  your  guest,"  Hildreth  interposed,  "the 
way  you've  been  raving  about  him,  too.  'Johnnie  Gregory'  this,  and 
'Johnnie  Gregory'  that! — and  the  minute  he  arrives,  first  you  try 
to  make  him  put  up  at  the  community  inn;  and  now  you  accuse 
him  of— of " 

Hildreth  began  to  weep  softly.  .  . 

And  then  began  a  performance  at  which  I  stood  aside,  mentally, 
in  admiration  .  .  the  way  that  little  woman  handled  her  husband! 

She  wept,  she  laughed,  she  upbraided,  she  cajoled  .  .  at  one 
moment  swore  she  wanted  nothing  better  than  to  die,  at  the  other, 
vowed  eternal  fidelity  till  old  age  overtook  them  both.  .  . 

"I  must  go,"  I  cried,  quite  ashamed  of  myself  in  my  heart.  Bax- 
ter's credulity  had  expanded  again,  in  the  sun  of  Hildreth's  forgive- 
ness of  him  for  his  unjust  suspicions !  .  . 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  perceived  how  a  desperate  woman 
can  twist  a  man  any  way  she  wants. 

"No,  you  must  not  go !  it  is  I  who  am  going — to  show  that  I 
trust  you." 

"Good  God !"  I  protested — this  was  too  much !  "no,  no  .  .  good- 
night, both  of  you  .  .  good-night,  Penton !  good-night,  Hildreth !" 

Penton  Baxter  stepped  in  my  way,  took  hold  of  one  of  my  hands 
in  both  of  his.  .  . 

"Please,  Johnnie,  please,  dear  friend  .  .  I  wish  you  to  stay  while 
I  myself  go.  Finish  reading  the  poem  to  Hildreth  .  .  I  think  I  have 
been  too  harsh  in  my  judgment  of  both  of  you  .  .  only  please  do  be 
more  discreet,  if  only  for  appearance's  sake,  in  the  future.  .  . 

"Sit  down  where  you  were.  I  wish  to  show  that  I  trust  you 
both.  .  . 


896  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

*'Good-mglit,  Hildreth !"  and  he  kissed  his  wife  in  fond  contrition. 

*'Good-night,  Johnnie  .   .  forgive  me !" 

And  he  wavered  out  at  the  door,  his  face  set  in  pain. 

•  ••♦••• 

As  soon  as  he  had  gone  I  rose  swiftly. 

"And  now  I  must  go." 

"If  you  men  aren't  the  funniest  things !"  she  caught  me  by  the 
hand,  detaining  me  .  .  "not  yet  .  .  wait  a  minute.  Read  more  of 
that  poem  you  began,  if  only  for  a  blind." 

I  picked  up  the  book,  started  reading  again  .  ,  strangely  a  rush 
of  tears  flooded  my  eyes  and  blurred  the  type.   .  . 

I  began  to  sob,  heart-sick.  I  did  love  the  absurd  little  man.  My 
heart  ached,  broken  over  my  lies.   .   . 

"Oh!  Oh!"  I  sobbed,  "Hildreth,  my  woman,  my  sweetheart — he 
trusted  me,  Hildreth  .   .  he  trusted  me!" 

I  knelt  by  the  bed,  thrusting  my  head  into  the  lap  of  my  First 
Woman. 

She  kissed  me  on  top  of  the  head. 

*'You're  both  two  big,  silly  babies,  that's  all  you  are." 

It  was  dawn  when  I  returned  to  my  tent,  pulled  the  flap  aside,  fell, 
exhausted,  on  my  cot  in  dreamless  sleep.  .  . 

How  was  it  all  going  to  end? 

It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  tapped  violent,  subterranean  currents 
in  life  and  passion,  that  I  had  not  hitherto  known  existed.   .   . 

Free  Love,  Marriage,  Polygamy,  Polyandry,  Varietism,  Promis- 
cuity— these  were  but  tossing  chips  of  nomenclature,  bits  of  verbal 
welter,  upborne  by  deep  terrible  human  currents  that  appalled  the 
imagination ! 

The  man  who  prated  glibly  of  any  ready  solution,  orthodox  or 
heterodox,  radical  or  conventional,  of  the  problem  of  the  relation- 
ships between  men  and  women  was  worse  than  a  fool,  he  was  a  dan- 
gerous madman! 

Hildreth  and  I,  a-field,  had  found  a  bed  of  that  exceptionally 
poisonous  mushroom  named  Pallida  something  or  other  .  .  the  book 
said  its  poison  was  kin  to  tTiat  of  the  poison  in  the  rattlesnake's  bite. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  397 

My  eyes  met  with  Hildreth's  .  .  we  needed  say  no  word,  both  thinking 
the  same  thought  that  frightened  us !  .  .  "how  easy  it  would  be — !" 

Now  we  were  plumbing  the  darker  side  of  passion.  Something 
that  Carpenter  does  not  write  of  in  his  Lovers  Coming  of  Age. 

A  night  of  wind,  shifting  into  rain.  Hildreth  I  knew  would  be 
afraid,  alone. 

I  stepped  into  her  cottage,  in  my  bath-robe.  She  almost  screamed 
at  my  sudden  appearance.  For  I  came  in  at  the  door  like  a  shadow, 
the  wind  and  rain  making  such  a  tumult  that  a  running  horse  would 
not  have  been  heard. 

*'Dearest  .  .  you're  all  wringing  wet  ,  .  you're  dripping  all  over 
the  floor.  Throw  off  that  robe.  Dry  yourself — there's  a  towel 
there !" 

She  flung  me  her  kimono.  "Here,  put  this  on,  till  you're  com- 
fortable again." 

I  came  out  in  her  kimono,  which  I  was  bursting  through  ^  .  my 
arms  sticking  out  to  my  elbow. 

She  laughed  herself  almost  into  hysteria  at  my  funny  appear- 
ance. 

•  •••••• 

"It  will  be  quite  safe  to-night.  I  don't  think  he'd  venture  out. 
This  is  a  hurricane,  not  a  rainstorm  .  .  besides,  I  believe  he's  a  little 
afraid  of  you,  Johnnie  .  .  I  was  watching  him  rather  closely,  while 
I  handled  him,  the  other  night  .  .  he  kept  an  uneasy  eye  on  you  all 
the  time." 

"God,  but  you  were  superb,  Hildreth  .  .  if  you  could  only  act 
that  way  on  the  stage! — " 

"I  could  act  that  way  on  the  stage,"  she  replied  unexpectedly,  a 
trifle  put  out.  .  . 

Then 

*'A  woman  has  to  do  many  things  to  save  herself " 

*'0h,  I  swear  that  you  are  the  most  marvellous,  the  most  beautiful 
woman  in  the  world  .  .  I  love  you  .  .  I  adore  you  .  .  I'd  die  for  you  .  . 
right  here  .  .  now !" 

As  we  lay  there  in  the  dark  the  storm  pulled  and  tugged  and 
battered  as  if  with  great,  sinister  hands,  striving  to  get  in  at  us. 


398  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Hildreth  trembled  in  my  arms,  shaking  afresh  at  each  shock  of 
the  wind  and  the  rain. 

"Don't  be  afraid,  my  little  woman!" 

"I  wonder  If  he'd  dare  come  down  to-night?" 

"If  he  did,  and  caught  us,  I'd  kill  him." 

"He  knows  that,  if  he  knows  anything,  I'm  sure  .  .  that's  why  I 
think  we're  all  right !" 

And  she  came  up  closer  into  my  arms  with  a  sigh  of  content. 

I  had  been  asleep.     .  . 

The  sudden  madness  and  saturnalia  of  love  into  which  I  had  these 
few  weeks  been  plunged  tapped,  it  seemed,  my  subliminal  conscious- 
ness, maybe  my  memory  of  former  incarnations.  .  . 

I  never  had  such  a  vision  in  my  life.  .  . 

I  was  fully  aware  of  my  surroundings,  yet  through  them  shone 
another,  a  far  reality  that  belonged  to  me,  too. 

I  described  it  to  Hildreth,  as  she  lay,  thrilled,  beside  me. 

A  cave  .  .  high  up  on  the  hill-crest  .  .  our  cave,  that  we  had 
imagined,  now  come  true.   .   . 

I  was  a  huge  chap,  with  a  girdle  of  leaves  about  my  waist  .  . 
strange,  tropic  leaves  .  .  there  was  black  hair  all  over  my  body  .  . 
there  was  a  little,  red  fire  back  in  the  cave's  obscurity.  .  . 

I  had  come  in,  casting  a  dead  fawn  down  from  my  shoulder.  .  . 

Hildreth  came  forward  .  .  it  was  plainly  she  .  .  though  with  fine 
red  hair  like  down  on  her  legs.  .  . 

"But  your  name  is  Naa  .  .  my  name  is  Kaa,  the  hunter,  the  slayer 
of  good,  red  meat." 

*' Johnnie,  do  you  really  see  that, — all  that !" 

She  was  enthralled  like  a  child,  as  I  described  the  landscape  that 
lay,  spread  immense,  beneath  us  .  and  the  wide  ocean,  great  and 
blue,  that  tossed  to  the  east. 

Though  I  was  genuinely  possessed  by  this  strange  vision,  though 
it  was  no  make-believe,  I  could  not  help  injecting  a  little  Kansas 
horse-play  into  it.   .   . 

I  sank  my  teeth  in  "Naa's"  shoulder,  till  she  cried  aloud.  I  seized 
her  by  the  hair  and  dragged  her  till  she  lay  prone  on  the  floor. 

I  stood  over  her,  making  guttural  noises,  which  I  did  so  realist- 
ically that  it  made  shivers  run  up  and  down  my  back  while 
doing  it.  .  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  399 

I  was  almost  as  frightened  as  she  was. 

Before  I  knew  it,  she  was  thinking  I  had  suddenly  gone  mad.  She 
was  shouting  "Mubby"  for  help — her  husband's  pet  name.  .  . 

The  little  fool!     I  caught  her  over  the  mouth  with  a  grim  hand. 

"Don't  do  that  .  .  can't  a  fellow  play  once  in  a  while?" 

*'But  it  wasn't  all  play,  was  it?" 

"No,  I  really  saw  the  cave,  and  the  primeval  landscape. 

*'Shall  I  tell  you  some  more?" 

**No,  it  frightens  me  too  much  .  .  it  seems  too  real.  And  you've 
bruised  me,  and  my  head  feels  as  if  you've  torn  half  my  hair  out." 

*'Why  did  you  call  out  your  husband's  pet  name?" 

"I  don't  know  .  .  did  I?" 

**Yes !" 

"After  a  pause  in  the  dark. 

"Tell  me,  was  he  .  .  was  Mubby  ,  .  back  there,  in  our  former  life?" 

"O  yes,  he  was  there." 

"And  Darrie,  too?" 

"Yes,  Darrie,  too !" 

"If  my  name  was  Naa  and  your  name  was  Kaa,  what  were  their 
names  ?" 

"Mubby  was  named  Baa  and  Darrie  was  Blaa!" 

This  convulsed  Hildreth. 

**You  great,  big,  sweet  fool  of  a  poet,  I  do  love  you,  I  really  do !" 

"We  were  made  for  each  other  in  every  way  .  .  my  head  just 
fits  your  shoulder,"  she  observed  quaintly. 

"Mubby  came  down  to  me  this  morning,"  said  Hildreth  one  eve- 
ning, "and  pleaded  to  be  taken  back  again  .  .  as  husband.  .  ." 

"And  what?—" 

"What  did  I  do?  .  .  when  I  love  you?  .  .  the  mere  idea  made  me 
sick  to  think  of.    I  couldn't  endure  him  again." 

•  ....•• 

One  afternoon  Penton  and  Hildreth  were  closeted  together  from 
lunch  to  dark.  It  was  my  turn  to  cry  out  in  my  heart,  and  suffer 
agonies  of  imagination. 

•  •••••» 

The  next  morning  Hildreth  began  packing  up,  with  the  aid  of 


400  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Mrs.  Jones.  I  came  upon  her,  in  the  library,  where  I  had  gone  to 
get  a  book.     My  face  fell  dismally. 

*'I  can't  endure  it  any  longer,  Johnnie,  I'm  going  back  home,  to 
New  York  .  .  my  father  will  take  me  in." 

*'And  how  about  me?" 

*' — wait  patiently  a  few  days  then,  if  you  still  feel  the  same 
about  me,  follow  me!  .  .  and,  until  you  come  to  join  me,  write  me  at 
least  three  times  a  day." 

"I'll  do  it  .  ."  then  I  couldn't  help  being  playful  again,  "I'll  write 
you  entirely  in  cave-fashion.'* 

"I  am  taking  a  big  step,  Johnnie,  I'm  through  with  Penton  Baxter 
forever — ^but  I  wonder  if  my  new  life  is  to  be  with  you  .  .  you  are 
such  an  irresponsible,  delightful  madman  at  times.  .  . 

"You're  wonderful  as  a  lover  .  .  but  as  a  man  with  a  woman  to 
take  care  of !" 

"Don't  worry  about  that !  just  give  me  a  chance,  and  I'll  show  you 
I  can  be  practical  too." 

Hildreth  had  gone.  With  her  going  the  bottom  seemed  to  drop 
out  of  my  existence,  leaving  a  black  hole  where  it  had  fallen  through. 
I  walked  about,  looking  so  truly  miserable,  that  even  Baxter  spoke 
with  gentle  consideration  to  me. 

"Poor  Johnnie,  to  think  you'd  run  into  a  proposition  like  this, 
the  first  pop  out  of  the  box." 

"No,  it  isn't  what  you  think  .  .  I'm  getting  malaria,  I  believe." 

But  to  be  deprived  of  her,  my  first  love.  No  longer  to  be  in  her 
presence,  no  longer  to  watch  her  quiet  smile,  the  lovely  droop  of  her 
mouth's  corner  .  .  to  feed  on  the  kisses  no  more  that  had  become 
as  necessary  as  daily  bread  itself  to  me 

I  began  to  lose  weight  .  .  to  start  up  in  the  night,  after  a  brief 
fit  of  false  slumber,  hearing  myself,  as  if  it  were  an  alien  voice, 
crying  her  name  aloud.  .  . 

I  whispered  and  talked  tender,  whimsical,  silly  things  to  my 
pillow,  holding  it  in  my  arms,  as  if  it  were  she.  .  . 

Each  day  I  sent  her  four,  five  letters  .  .  letters  full  of  madness, 
absurdity,  love,  despair,  wild  expressions  of  intimacy  that  I  would 
Have  died  to  know  anybody  else  ever  saw. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  401 

Her  first  letter  in  return  burned  me  alive  with  happiness.  .  . 

" — you  know  why  she  went  to  the  city,"  Penton  teased,  "it's 
becai^se  'Gene  Mallows,  the  California  poet,  is  up  there.  He  and 
she  got  on  pretty  well  when  we  were  on  the  coast." 

"You  lie!"  I  bellowed,  beside  myself,  "Hildreth  will  be  faithful 
to  me  .   .  she  has  promised." 

Penton  Baxter  looked  me  up  and  down,  courageously,  coolly,  for 
a  long  time.     Slowly  I  realised  what  I  had  just  said. 

"That's  all  I  wanted  to  know,  John  Gregory !  I've  got  it  out  of 
you  at  last !" 

He  turned  on  his  heel. 

Changing  his  mind,  he  faced  me  again.  This  time  there  was  a 
despairful  agony  of  kindness  in  his  face. 

"Dear  boy,  I'm  sorry  for  all  this  thing  that  has  come  between  us. 
But  there  is  yet  time  for  you  to  keep  out  of  it.  Hildreth  and  I  are 
done  with  each  other  forever  .  .  but  you  needn't  be  mixed  up  in 
this  affair.   .   . 

"Johnnie,  let  her  stay  in  New  York,  and,  no  matter  how  much 
she  wants  you,  don't  go  up  there  to  join  her." 

"I  love  her.  I  adore  her.  I  want  to  be  where  she  is.  Now  the 
whole  truth  is  out." 

**My  poor  friend !" 

"Don't  call  me  your  friend — you ^" 

He  tightened  his  lips.  .  . 

"If  you  go  up  there  to  join  her,  remember  that  I  gave  you  fair 
warning." 

•  •••••• 

I  could  endure  it  no  longer,  the  torment  of  not  seeing  her,  of  not 
being  with  her.   .   . 

As  her  favourite  sonneteer,  Santayana,  writes — lines  she  often 
quoted — 

*'Love  leads  me  on,  no  end  of  love  appears. 
Is  this  the  heaven,  poets,  that  ye  paint  .f* 
Oh  then,  how  like  damnation  to  be  blessed !" 

I  informed  Ruth,  Darrie,  Penton  that  I  was  going  to  New  York 
in  the  morning.  .  . 


402  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Penton  immediately  whisked  out  of  my  sight,  full  of  uncontrollable 
emotion.  .  . 

Darrie  and  Ruth  almost  fell  upon  me,  trying  to  persuade  me  not 
to  rejoin  Hildreth.  I  evaded  by  saying  that  I  was  now  on  my  way 
to  Europe,  that  possibly  I  might  see  her  before  I  went,  but 

I  had  an  hour  till  train  time.  My  MSS.  was  packed  again,  my 
Josephus,  my  Homer,  my  Shakespeare,  my  Keats,  my  bath  robe. 

I  thought  I  would  escape  without  saying  good-bye. 

Put  Penton  came  down  the  front  porch,  stood  in  my  path. 

"Johnnie,  a  last  warning." 

"I  want  none  of  your  last  warnings." 

*'Are  you  going  to  Hildreth?" 

"I'm  tired  of  being  a  liar.  I've  never  lied  so  much  in  my  life  .  . 
yes,  I'm  going  to  Hildreth  .  .  and  I'm  going  to  persuade  her  to  live 
with  me,  and  defy  the  whole  damned  world  —  the  world  of  fake 
radicals  that  talk  about  divorces  when  the  shoe  pinches  them,  as 
well  as  the  world  of  conservatives,"  I  announced  harshly. 

"I've  done  all  I  could!"  he  responded  wearily,  "I  see  you  won't 
come  to  your  senses — wait  a  minute !"  and  he  turned  on  his  heel. 
He  had  asked  me  to  wait  with  such  solemnity  that  I  stuck  still  in  my 
tracks,  waiting. 

He  disappeared  into  the  big  house,  to  re-emerge  with,  of  all 
things,  the  coffee  percolator! 

"Here!"  he  exclaimed,  holding  out  the  object  to  me  ceremoniously 
and  seriously,  "you  can  take  this  to  your  goddess,  this  poison- 
machine,  and  lay  it  on  her  altar.  Tell  her  I  offered  this  to  you. 
Tell  her  that  it  is  a  symbol  of  her  never  coming  back  here  again." 

Here  was  where  I  too  lacked  a  sense  of  humour.  I  struck  the 
coffee  percolator  out  of  his  hands.    I  stalked  off. 

On  the  way  to  New  York  I  built  the  full  dream  of  what  Hildreth 
and  I  were  to  effect  for  the  world — a  practical  example,  in  our 
life  as  we  lived  it  together,  of  the  rightness  of  free  love.  .  . 

We  would  test  it  out,  would  rent  a  cottage  somewhere,  preferably 
on  the  Jersey  coast  near  the  sea  shore  .  .  autumn  was  coming  on, 
and  there  would  be  lovely,  crystal-clear  weather  .  .  and  the  scent  of 
pines  in  the  good  air. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  403 

Perhaps  Penton,  Hildreth  and  I  could  all  three  join  in  amicable 
accord,  over  the  solution  of  our  difficulty,  along  radical  and  ideal- 
istic lines. 

I  hurried  to  the  address  given  me  by  Hildreth.  She  was  not  in, 
but  her  mother  was  .  .  a  plump,  rather  good  looking,  fashionably 
dressed  woman.  Evidently  the  mother  did  not  know  of  the  relation- 
ship between  me  and  her  daughter. 

"So  you  are  the  poet  Hildreth  has  told  me  about.''"  after  we  had 
discoursed  for  upwards  of  an  hour 

"I  can  easily  see  how  Hildreth  has  grown  so  fond  of  you,"  and 
she  patted  me  on  the  head  as  if  I  were  a  schoolboy,  in  motherly 
fashion. 

"Mother's  rather  stupid  and  old-fashioned  .  .  there'd  be  no  use 
trying  to  explain  the  situation  to  her.  The  best  thing  we  can  do 
is  to  persuade  her  that  Daniel  needs  her,  down  in  Eden  .  .  that  will 
remove  her  from  the  flat,  so  we  can  have  it  all  to  ourselves  for  a  few 
days,  in  order  to  plan  what  is  to  be  done  next." 

Next  morning  Mrs.  Deuell,  Hildreth's  mother,  as  innocent  as  a 
new-born  lamb  as  to  what  was  up,  permitted  herself  to  be  shipped 
off  to  Eden,  to  take  care  of  Daniel. 

Instead  of  planning,  however,  and  marshalling  our  resources, 
Hildreth  and  I  abandoned  ourselves  to  the  mutual  happiness  and 
endearments  of  two  love-drunk,  emotion-crazed  beings  on  a  honey- 
moon. .  . 

•  •••••• 

The  bell  rang.    In  walked  Darrie. 

"Well,  Darrie!"  and  Hildreth  embraced  her  friend.  And  I  was 
glad  to  see  her,  too.  I  knew  that,  in  spite  of  the  high  pressure  we 
had  lived  under  during  the  past  summer,  Darrie  was  trying  hard  to 
be  just,  to  be  friend  to  all  of  us.  .  . 

She  laughed  at  the  disorder  of  the  place  .  ,  dishes  unwashed  .  . 
food  scattered  about  on  the  table.  .  . 

"What  a  pair  of  love-birds  you  two  are." 

"And  has  Penton  accepted  the  situation?" 

"I  came  up  to  tell  you  that  he  has  .  .  it  has  made  him  quite  sick, 
though !" 


404  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Poor  Mubby !"  Hildreth  ejaculated. 

" — but  he  has  sent  me  to  tell  you  that  you  can  go  away  together 
wherever  you  please,  that  he  won't  molest  you  in  the  least." 

"It's  too  incredible !"  cried  Hildreth,  almost  disappointed,  "you 
don't  know  him  .   .  he's  changed  his  mind,  I  am  sure,  since  you  left." 

"He  said  he  would  follow  me  by  Saturday  (it  was  Wednesday) 
leaving  your  mother  in  care  of  Daniel." 

"Does  mother  suspect? " 

"No  .  .  not  at  all." 

"If  the  entire  world  fell  about  mother's  ears,  she  wouldn't  know." 

*'What  do  you  two  lovers  purpose  doing?" 

I  unfolded  my  scheme  of  living  with  Hildreth  in  a  Jersey  bunga- 
low. .  .  Derek's  income  to  me  would  go  on  a  while  yet  .  .  I  could 
sell  stories  and  poems  to  the  New  Yorw  magazines.  .  .  Hildreth 
could  write  a  book  as  well  as  I  .  .  we  would  become  to  the  modern 
world  an  example  of  the  radical  love-life  .  .  the  Godwin  and  WoU- 
stonecraft  of  the  age. 

•  •••••• 

We  ate  supper  together,  the  three  of  us,  in  the  flat.  It  was  so 
cosy.  Darrie  and  Hildreth  joined  in  cleaning  the  house  that  after- 
noon. 

But  a  bomb  was  to  be  hurled  among  us. 

At  twelve  o'clock  of  the  next  day  the  'phone  rang. 

Darrie  answered  it.  After  a  few  words  she  came  for  me,  her  face 
as  white  as  a  sheet.   .   . 

"My  God,  Penton  is  in  town!" 

" — this  is  only  Thursday  .  .  he  was  not  coming  till  Saturday !"  I 
exclaimed,  full  of  forboding. 

"I  knew,  I  knew  he  wouldn't  keep  his  original  mind !"  exclaimed 
Hildreth. 

"He's  holding  the  wire  .  .  wants  to  say  something  to  you,  Johnnie." 

•  •••••• 

"Yes,  Penton,  what  is  it  ?" 

**Only  this,"  his  voice  replied,  as  if  rehearsing  a  set  speech,  "yes- 
terday afternoon  I  sent  a  telegram  to  my  lawyer  to  institute  pro- 
ceedings for  a  divorce,  and  I  mentioned  you  as  co-respondent.  .  ." 

"Damn  you  to  hell  .  .  I  thought  we  were  going  to  settle  this  in 
the  radical  way  ?" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  405 

"It's  the  only  way  out  that  I  can  see.  I've  stood  this  business 
till  it's  almost  killing  me." 

"Well,  is  that  all?" 

"No  .  .  somehow — how,  I  do  not  know,  the  New  York  Journal  has 
gotten  hold  of  my  wire  .  .  it  will  be  in  all  the  papers  to-night  or  to- 
morrow .  .  so  I  advise  you  and  Hildreth  to  disappear  quietly  some- 
where, if  you  don't  want  to  see  the  reporters, — ^who  will  all  presently 
be  on  the  way  to  the  flat." 

"Damn  you,  Penton  .  .  needn't  tell  me  about  the  news  leaking  out 
,  .  you've  done  it  yourself  .  .  now  I  want  you  to  promise  me  only  one 
thing,  that  you'll  hold  the  reporters  off  for  a  couple  of  hours,  till 
we  have  a  good  start." 

"I'll  do  my  best,"  answered  he,  "but  please  believe  me.  How  they 
got  the  contents  of  the  telegram  I  do  not  know,  but  on  my  honour 
I  did  not  give  it  out  nor  did  I  tell  the  reporters  where  you  are." 

Hildreth  was  so  angry  she  could  hardly  speak. 

"This  is  a  fine  to-do,"  exclaimed  Darrie,  "Penton  distinctly  prom- 
ised me " 

"I'd  like  to  get  a  good  crack  at  him !"  I  boasted,  at  the  same  time 
enjoying  the  excitement. 

•  •••••• 

Hildreth  began  packing  her  clothes  in  a  large  suitcase  .  .  as  we 
later  found  she  cast  all  her  clean  clothes  aside,  and  in  her  excitement 
included  all  her  soiled  linen  and  lingerie.   .  . 

We  had  our  last  meal  together.  I  brought  in  a  large  bottle 
of  white  wine.  All  of  us  grew  rather  hilarious  and  made  a  merry 
joke  of  the  adventure.     We  poked  fun  at  Penton. 

We  sallied  forth  at  the  front  door,  Darrie  to  go  to  the  Martha 
Washington.  "I  don't  want  to  be  mixed  up  in  the  coming  uproar 
and  scandal,"  she  exclaimed  .  .  "so  far,  I'm  clear  of  all  blame,  and 
I  know  only  too  well  what  the  papers  would  insinuate." 

Hildreth  and  I  took  train  for  New  Jersey  .  .  two  tickets  for — 
anywhere  .  .  in  our  excited  condition  we  ran  off  first  to  Elizabeth. 
We  had  with  us  exactly  one  hundred  dollars,  which  I  had  borrowed 
of  Darrie  before  we  parted  on  our  several  ways. 

I  registered  for  Hildreth  and  myself  as  "Mr.  Arthur  Mallory 
and  wife,"  in  the  register  of  an  obscure  hotel  near  the  noise  and 
clatter  of  a  hundred  trains  drawing  continually  out  and  in. 


406  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

It  made  me  happy  and  important  to  sign  her  name  on  the  register 
as  something  belonging  to  me. 

Once  alone  in  the  room,  Hildreth,  to  my  consternation,  could 
talk  of  nothing  else  but  Penton. 

" — to  think  that  he  would  do  such  a  thing  to  me,  only  to  think 
of  it!"  she  cried  vehemently,  again  and  again. 

"If  he  believes  in  freedom  for  men  and  women,  why  was  all 
this  necessary .'^  the  sordidness  of  the  public  clamour.''  the  divorce 
court  ?  .  .  oh,  my  poor,  dear,  sweet,  wild  poet-boy,  you're  in  for  it ! 
Don't  you  wish  you  were  well  out  of  all  this  and  back  in  Kansas 
again.'"' 

"No ;  I  am  glad.  As  long  as  I  am  with  you  I  don't  care  what 
happens.     I  love  you,  Hildreth!" 

In  the  night  she  woke,  screaming,  from  a  nightmare.  I  could 
hardly  stop  her. 

**Hush,  dearest  .  .  darling  .  .  sweetheart.  .  .  I  am  with  you; 
everything  is  all  right"  .  .  then,  as  she  kept  it  up,  "for  God's  sake 
.  .  Hildreth,  do  be  quiet  .  .  you're  all  right  .  .  the  man  you  love  is 
here,  close  by  you  .  .  no  harm  shall  come  to  you." 

"Oh,  Johnnie,"  clutching  me,  quivering,  "I've  just  had  such  a 
horrible  dieam,"  sobbing  as  I  took  her  tenderly  in  my  arms.  .  . 

"There,  there,  darling!" 

She  was  quiet  now. 

"In  a  few  minutes  we  would  have  had  the  whole  hotel  breaking 
in  at  the  door  .  .  thinking  I  was  killing  you." 

She  woke  up  again,  and  wote  me  up. 

"Johnnie,  find  me  some  ink  and  a  pen.  I'm  going  to  write  that 
cad  a  letter  that  will  shrivel  him  up  like  acid." 

"Can't  you  wait  till  morning,  Hildreth?"  sleepily. 

"No  .  .  I  must  write  it  now." 

I  dressed.  I  went  down  to  the  hotel  writing-room  and  came 
back  with  pen  and  ink. 

She  sat  up  in  bed  and  wrote  the  letter.  She  then  read  it  aloud 
to  me.     She  was  immensely  pleased  with  her  effort. 

With  a  final  gesticulation  of  vindictive,  feminine  joy,  she  succeeded 
in  spilling  the  whole  bottle  of  ink  on  the  white  bed-spread. 

"Now  you've  done  it." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  407 

"We'll  have  to  clear  out  early  before  the  chambermaid  comes 
in  .  .  we're  only  staying  here  for  one  night  and  can't  waste  our 
money  paying  for  the  damage." 

In  the  morning  I  bought  the  papers. 

The  American  had  made  a  scoop.  There  it  was,  the  story  of  the 
whole  thing  on  the  front  page. 

"PENTON  BAXTER  SUES  FOR  DIVORCE 


Names  Vagabond-Poet  as  Co-Respondent" 

There  it  stood,  in  big  head-lines. 

The  actuality  stared  us  in  the  face.  We  belonged  to  each  other 
now.     It  was  no  longer  a  summer  idyll,  but  a  practical  reality. 

As  we  took  the  train  for  Long  Branch  we  realised  that  we  had 
plunged  midmost  into  the  action  that  would  put  all  our  theories 
to  the  test.   .   . 

I  looked  at  my  woman  with  a  sidelong  glance,  as  she  sat  beside 
me  on  the  train  seat.  .  .  She  was  so  pretty,  so  frail,  so  feminine 
that  I  pitied  her,  while  at  the  same  time  my  heart  swelled  with 
tenderness  for  her,  and  with  pride  of  possession.  For  she  was  mine 
now  without  dispute.  She,  for  her  part,  spoke  but  little,  except 
illogically  to  upbraid  Penton  Baxter,  as  if  he  had  perpetrated  an 
ill  on  two  people  thoroughly  innocent. 

I  was  angry  with  him  on  other  grounds  .  .  he  was  not  playing 
the  radical  game,  but  taking  advantage  of  the  rules  of  the  conven- 
tional world. 

With  a  fugitive  sense  of  pursuit,  we  hired  a  cabby  to  drive  us 
to  a  summer  boarding  house  at  Long  Branch  .  .  where  Hildreth 
and  I  rented  a  single  large  room  for  both  of  us.   .   . 

And  there  Hildreth  immediately  went  into  hysterics,  and  did 
nothing  but  weep.  While  I  waited  on  her  hand  and  foot,  bringing  up 
food  to  her  because  she  was  sensitive  about  the  probability  of  people 
recognising  her. 

We  stayed  there  a  week.  Each  day  the  papers  were  full  of 
our  mysterious  disappearance  .  .  reporters  were  combing  the  country 
to  find  us.  Reports  of  our  being  in  various  places  were  sent  in 
by  enterprising  local  correspondents.  .  . 

Again  we  entrained  .  .  for  Sea  Girt. 


408  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

An  old  cabman  who  drove  a  dilapidated  rig  hailed  us  with 
uplifted  whip. 

"We  are  looking  for  a  place  to  board." 

"I'll  take  you  to  a  nice,  quiet  place,  just  suited  to  two  home- 
loving  folks  like  you,"  he  replied,  thinking  he  had  paid  us  a 
compliment,  and  whipping  up  his  ancient  nag. 

Hildreth  gave  me  a  nudge  and  a  merry  look  and  it  pleased  me  to 
see  she  still  had  her  sense  of  humour  left. 

That  night,  as  I  held  her  in  my  arms,  "Don't  let  these  little, 
trivial  inconveniences  and  incidents — the  petty  persecutions  we  are 
undergoing,  have  any  effect  on  our  great  love,"  I  pleaded. 

"That's  all  very  well,  darling  Johnnie,  but  where  are  we  going  to?" 

"We'll  find  a  cottage  somewhere  .  .  a  pretty  little  cottage  within 
our  means,"  I  replied,  visioning  a  vine-trellised  place  such  as  poets 
and  their  brides  must  live  in. 

"Our  money  is  giving  out  .  .  soon  we'll  have — to  turn  back  to 
New  York!" 

"If  we  do,  that  need  not  part  us  .  .  I'll  get  a  job  on  some 
newspaper  or  magazine  and  take  care  of  you." 

When  I  called  for  my  mail  at  the  Sea  Girt  post  office,  sure  of 
hearing  from  Darrie,  anyhow, — ^who  promised  us  she  would  keep 
us  posted,  I  found  no  letter.  And  the  man  at  the  window  was 
certain  he  had  handed  over  several  letters  addressed  to  me  to 
someone  else  who  had  called  for  them,  giving  my  name  as  his. 

A  wave  of  hot  anger  suffused  my  face.  How  stupid  of  me  not 
to  have  noticed  it  before.  Now  I  remembered  the  men  who  had 
followed  us. 

Our  mail  was  being  intercepted.  How  was  Baxter  to  procure 
his  divorce  without  gaining  evidence  in  just  such  a  way? 

One  night  I  started  on  a  long  walk  alone.  I  walked  along  the 
beach.  In  the  dark  I  toolc  off  my  clothes  and  plunged  for  a  swim 
into  the  chilly  surf  .  .  a  high  sea  was  thundering  in.  I  was  caught 
in  the  undertow,  swept  off  my  feet,  and  dragged  beyond  by  depth 
.  .  for  a  moment  I  was  of  a  heart  to  let  go,  to  permit  myself  to  be 
drowned  .  .  I  was  even  intrigued,  for  the  moment,  by  the  thought 
of  what  the  newspapers  would  say  about  my  passing  over  in 
such  a  romantic  way. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  409 

But  the  will  to  live  rose  up  in  me.  And  I  fought  my  way, — and 
it  was  a  bitter  fight, — back  to  shallow  water.  I  flung  myself  prone 
on  the  beach,  exhausted. 

When  I  reached  our  room  again,  I  related  my  adventure  to 
Hildreth. 

It  was  she  who  took  care  of  me  now.  I  lay  all  night  in  a  high 
fever  ,  .  but  I  was  so  happy,  for  the  woman  of  my  heart  sat  close  by 
me,  holding  my  hand,  speaking  soft  terms  of  endearment  to  me, 
tending  to  all  my  wants. 

This  tenderness,  this  solicitude  and  companionship  seemed  for 
the  first  time  better  to  me  than  the  maddest  transports  of  passion 
that  swept  us  into  one. 

In  the  morning  mail  came  a  letter,  general  delivery,  from  Penton 
.  .  Now  I  was  sure  he  was  having  our  every  step  watched.  A  blind 
passion  against  him  rose  in  me  .   .  the  little  bounder ! 

In  the  letter  he  asked  me  to  meet  him  at  the  Sea  Girt  railway 
station  at  four  o'clock.  I  made  it  by  the  time  indicated,  by  a 
brisk  walk. 

There  he  was,  dropping  off  the  train  as  it  came  to  a  stop. 
Another  scene  flashed  through  my  mind,  a  visual  remembrance  of 
the  day  he  had  dropped  off  to  visit  me  at  Laurel. 

Then  we  had  rushed  toward  each  other,  hands  extended  in  warm, 
affectionate  greeting  .   .   now  .   .  I  slowly  sauntered  up  to  him. 

"Yes,  Penton,  what  do  you  want ;  how  much  longer  are  you 
going  to  torture  your  wife?" 

" — yours  now,  Johnnie ;  mine  no  longer !"  grimly. 

"If  she  were  wholly  mine,  I'd  knock  you  flat  .  .  but  you  still  have 
a  sort  of  right  in  her  that  protects  you  from  what  I  otherwise 
might  do  to  you." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  let's  be  calm." 

"Calm — when  you  say  in  your  letter,  'you  need  not  be  afraid,  I 
meditate  no  harm?' — do  j^ou  mean  to  imply  that,  under  any 
circumstance,  I  would  be  afraid  of  you?" 

"Johnnie,  there  is  only  one  way  to  settle  this  .  .  I'm  set  on  getting 
the  complete  evidence  for  a  divorce  .  .  exactly  where  is  Hildreth 
now  ?" 

"None  of  your  damned  business  .  .  all  I  can  say  is  that  she  is 
somewhere  near  here  .   .   and  she's  sick  and  hysterical  through  your 


4.10  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

persecutions  .  .  and  if  you  don't  call  off  your  snooping  detectives, 
by  the  Lord  God,  if  I  run  into  any  of*  them,  I'll  try  to  kill  them." 

"Johnnie,  it's  the  best  thing  to  deliver  the  legal  evidence  and 
have  it  over  with.  Let  me  accompany  you  to  where  Hildreth  is, 
and " 

"If  she  set  eyes  on  you,"  I  replied,  "she'd  fly  at  you  and  scratch 
your  eyes  out — in  her  present  mood." 

*'Only  show  me  where  she  is,  then — point  out  the  place." 

"If  I  find  you  snooping  around,  you'll  need  hospital  attention 
for  a  long  time." 

"Then  you  won't  help  facilitate  the  proceedings,  secretly.'"' 

**No,  since  you've  begun  this  game,  find  out  what  you  can  yourself. 
What  do  you  think  I  am?" 

"A  very  foolish  young  man  to  treat  me  so  when  I  am  still  your 
best  friend." 

"Here  comes  the  north-bound  train.  You  hop  aboard  and  go 
on  back  to  New  York." 

Seething  with  rage,  I  caught  Penton  Baxter  by  the  arm  and 
thrust  him  up  the  steps.  .  . 

Next  morning  came  a  letter  from  Darrie,  from  the  Martha 
Washington.    We  were  the  talk  of  the  town,  she  told  us. 

She  had  tried  to  keep  Penton  from  employing  detectives  to  follow 
us.  She  advised  us  to  return  to  New  York — we  must  be  out  of 
money  by  this  time.  .  . 

Hildreth  could  stay  at  her  mother's  and  father's  flat  till  we 
made  further  arrangements  for  going  off  some  place  together. 

•  •••••• 

"Darling,  if  we  return  from  what  has  proven  to  be  a  wild-goose 
chase,  will  you  promise  me  not  to  become  disheartened,  to  lose 
faith  in  me?" 

"Of  course  not,  Johnnie  .  .  I  think  Darrie  offered  very  good 
advice,"  she  sighed. 

Back  we  turned,  by  the  next  day's  train,  full  of  a  sense  of 
frustration;  what  an  involved,  unromantic,  practical  world  we 
lived  in! 

Hildreth  heaved  a  sigh  of  content  as  we  walked  into  her  mother's 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  411 

flat  again.  Her  mother  was  still  at  Eden  .  .  alone  .  .  taking  care 
of  Daniel,  for  whom  she  had  a  great  love. 

We  had  Darrie  over  the  telephone,  and  soon  she  was  with  us, 
giving  us  the  latest  news  of  the  uproar. 

The  papers  were  at  us  pro  and  con,  mostly  con. 

Dorothy  Dix  had  written  a  nasty  attack  on  me,  saying  that  I 
was  climbing  to  fame  over  a  woman's  prostrate  body  .  .  that,  in 
my  own  West,  instead  of  a  judge  and  a  divorce  court,  a  shotgun 
would  have  presided  in  my  case.  .  . 

The  Glohe  was  running  a  forum,  suddenly  stopped,  as  to  whether 
people  of  genius  and  artistic  temperament  should  be  allowed  more 
latitude  than  ordinary  folk.  .  . 

As  Hildreth  and  I  rode  down  Broadway  together,  side  by  side, 
unrecognised,  on  a  street  car,  we  saw  plastered  everywhere,  "Stop 
That  Affinity  Hunt,"  a  play  of  that  name  to  be  shown  at  Maxime 
Elliott's  Theatre.  .  . 

I  must  admit  that  I  was  pleased  with  the  sudden  notoriety  that 
had  come  to  me  .  .  years  of  writing  poetry  had  made  my  name 
known  but  moderately,  here  and  there  .  .  but  having  run  away 
with  a  famous  man's  wife,  my  name  was  cabled  everywhere  .  .  even 
appeared  in  Japanese,  Russian,  and  Chinese  newspapers.  .  . 

But  this  was  not  what  I  wanted  of  the  papers  .  .  I  must  use 
this  space  offered  me  to  propagandise  my  ideas  of  free  love.  .  . 

So  I  arranged  to  meet  Penton  privately  in  the  lobby  of  the 
Martinique. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Hildreth  and  I  were  there,  waiting,  before  Penton  came  the  next 
day.  Appearing,  he  wore  the  old,  bland,  childlike  smile,  and  he 
shook  hands  with  us  as  if  nothing  untoward  had  ever  taken  place. 

Someone  had  tipped  off  the  reporters  and  they  were  on  time,  too, 
crowding  about  us  eagerly.  One  young  fellow  from  the  Sun,  looking 
like  a  graduate  from  a  school  of  divinity,  asked  a  special  interview 
of  me  alone,  which  I  gave  .  .  afterward  .  .  in  a  corner. 

That  Sun  reporter  gave  me  the  fairest  deal  I  ever  received. 
He  talked  with  me  over  an  hour,  without  ever  setting  pencil  to 
paper  .  .  the  other  interviews  were  long  over,  Penton  had  left, 
Hildreth  sat  chafing.  .  . 

"Come  over  and  join  us,  Hildreth." 


412  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

She  sat  listening  in  silence  while  I  continued  rehearsing  all  my 
ideas  on  marriage,  love,  divorce  .  .  how  love  should  be  all  .  .  how 
there  should,  ideally,  be  no  marriage  ceremony  .  .  but  if  any  at  all, 
only  after  the  first  child  had  been  born  .  .  how  the  state  should  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  private  love-relations  of  the  individual  .  . 

The  reporter  from  the  Sun  shook  hands  good-bye. 

"But  you  haven't  taken  a  single  note!"  I  protested. 

*'I  have  it  all  here,  in  my  head." 

"But  how  can  you  report  me  accurately.''" 

*'See  to-morrow's  Sun." 

•  •••••• 

The  interview  with  me  was  a  marvel  in  two  ways:  it  represented 
to  a  hair's  breadth  everything  I  had  pronounced,  transmuted  into 
the  reporter's  own  style  of  writing  .  .  it  curtailed  my  conversation 
where  I  had  repeated  myself  or  wandered  off  into  trivial  detail. 

*'I  wonder  what  they'll  say  back  in  Kansas !"  I  had  exclaimed 
to  Hildreth,  in  the  hearing  of  the  reporters. 

"Oh,  bother  Kansas !"  replied  Hildreth  humorously. 

For  a  month  "I  wonder  what  they'll  say  back  in  Kansas"  was  a 
catch-word  for  Broadway  and  the  town. 

When  the  Evening  Journal  put  us  in  their  "Dingbat  Family"  I 
enjoyed  the  humour  of  it.     But  Hildreth  was  angry  and  aggrieved. 

"You  and  Penton,"  remarked  she,  "for  men  of  culture  and  sensi- 
bility, have  bigger  blind  spots  than  ordinary  in  your  make-up.  Why, 
Johnnie,  I  believe  3'ou  enjoy  the  comic  pictures  about  this  busi- 
ness !  .  . 

"The  only  way  to  conduct  propaganda  for  a  cause  is  through 
the  dignified  medium  of  books,  I  am  rapidly  becoming  convinced — 
not  through  newspaper  interviews ;  which,  when  they  are  not  silly, 
are  insulting." 

•  •••••• 

Baxter's  lawyer  soon  put  a  stop  to  our  public  amicability  .  . 
"collusion,"  he  warned  Penton;  "they'll  call  it  collusion  and  you 
won't  get  your  final  decree." 

Tad  drew  cartoons  of  us  .  .  a  cluster  of  them  ,  .  "Silk  Hat 
'Harry^s  Divorce  Suit"  .  .  with  dogs'  heads  on  all  of  us  .  .  Hildreth, 
with  the  head  of  a  hound  dog,  long  hound-ears  flopping,  with  black 
jade  ear-rings  in  them  .  .  Penton,  a  woe-begone  little  pug.  ,  . 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  413 

A  box  car  loomed  in  the  centre  of  the  main  picture,  "The  Affinity 
Nest  of  the  Hoho  Poet,"  I  think  it  was  legended  .  .  then  I  was 
drawn  standing,  one  leg  crossed  over  the  other,  the  peak  of  the 
toe  jauntily  resting  on  the  ground,  hand-in-breast  like  an  old- 
fashioned  picture.  There  was  a  tin  can  thrown  over  the  shoulder 
of  the  tattered  bulldog  that  represented  me  .  .  one  of  my  ears 
went  through  my  hat  .  .  beneath,  a  rhyme  ran: 

**I  am  the  hobo  poet, 
I  lead  a  merry  life: 
One  day  I  woo  the  Muse,  the  next. 
Another  fellow's  wife!" 

•  «••«•« 

I  brought  this  up  to  the  cottage  we  had  now  procured,  down 
in  West  Grove,  N.  J.,  where  we  had  gone  finally  to  escape  the  city, 
and  the  swarm  of  reporters  that  seemed  never  to  cease  pursuing 
us  .  .  for,  when  we  found  out  that  they  did  not  want  propaganda, 
we  sought  to  hide  away  from  them.  .  . 

Hildreth  had  been  rather  gloomy  at  breakfast  that  morning, 
and  I  thought  she  would  join  in  a  laugh  with  me  over  Tad's 
horse-play.  There  is  a  streak  in  me  that  makes  me  enjoy  the 
grotesque  slap-stick  of  the  comic  artists. 

When  Hildreth  saw  the  cartoons,  she  laughed  a  little,  at  first; 
then  she  wept  violently. 

Then  she  wrote  a  savage  letter  to  Tad,  letting  him  know  what 
she  thought  of  his  vulgarity. 

*'There  is  one  thing  in  you  which  I  shall  never  quite  compass 
with  my  understanding,"  she  almost  moaned,  "you  express  the 
most  exquisite  thoughts  in  the  loveliest  language  .  .  you  enter  into 
the  very  soul  of  beauty  .  .  and  then  you  come  out  with  some  bit 
of  horse-play,  some  grotesquerie  of  speech  or  action  that  spoils 
it  all." 

Nevertheless,  it  was  the  humanness  in  me  that  brought  all  the 
reporters  who  came  to  interview  us  to  sympathise  with  Hildreth  and 
me,  instead  of  with  Penton. 

Yes,  we  had  found  our  dream-cottage  .  .  back  in  the  lovely 
pines,  near  West  Grove.     At  a  nominal  sum  of  fifteen  dollars   a 


414  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

month;  the  actress  who  owned  it,  sympathising  with  our  fight, 
had  rented  it  to  me  for  the  fall  and  winter  .  .  if  we  could  stand  the 
bitter  cold  in  a  summer  cottage.  .  . 

There  Hildreth  stayed,  seemingly  alone,  with  Darrie,  who  had 
come  down  to  chaperon  her.  To  the  reporters  who  sought  her 
out  when  her  place  of  retreat  became  known,  she  averred  that  she 
had  no  idea  of  my  whereabouts.  In  the  meantime,  under  the  name 
of  Mallory,  I  was  living  near  by,  was  renting  a  room  in  the  house 
of  a  Mrs.  Rond,  whose  husband  was  an  artist. 

I  came  and  went  to  and  from  my  cottage  by  a  bye-path  through 
the  pines  that  led  to  the  back  door. 

Darrie,  as  we  called  her,  performed  the  most  difficult  task  of  all 
— the  task  of  remaining  friends  to  all  parties  concerned. 

The  strain  was  beginning  to  tell  on  Penton.  A  strange,  new, 
unsuspected  thing  was  welling  up  in  his  heart,  Darrie  averred  .  , 
his  love  for  his  repudiated  wife  was  reviving  so  strongly  that  now 
he  dared  not  see  her,  it  would  hurt  him  too  deeply.  .  . 

His  friends,  the  Stotesburies,  a  wealthy  radical  couple,  had 
let  him  have  a  cottage  of  theirs  up  in  Connecticut,  and  he  was 
staying  in  it  all  by  himself,  doing  his  own  cooking  and  hurrying  with 
a  new  book  in  order  to  get  enough  money  to  defray  the  enormous 
expenses  he  had  incurred  by  initiating  and  prosecuting  his  divorce 
suit.  .  . 

And  now  Daniel  joined  us.  Daniel  and  I  agreed  with  each  other 
famously.  For  he  liked  me.  He  took  walks  with  me,  and  we 
went  bathing  together  after  I  had  done  my  morning's  writing. 
We  crabbed  in  the  Manasquan  River,  and  fished. 

Once,  when  I  was  galloping  along  the  road  in  imitation  of  a 
horse,  with  him  perched  on  my  shoulders 

"Say,  Johnnie,  I  like  you  .  .  I  won't  call  you  buzzer  any  more !" 

"I  like  you,  too,  Daniel,  but  don't  squeeze  me  so  hard  about  the 
neck  .  .  it's  choking  my  wind  off." 


That  was  a  happy  month  .  .  that  month  of  fine,  fairly  warm 
fall  weather  that  Darrie,  Hildreth,  Daniel  and  I  spent  together 
in  the  little  cottage  back  in  the  woods,  secluded  from  the  road. 

The  newspapers  had  begun  to  let  up  on  us  a  little.  It  had 
grown  a  bit  galling  and  monotonous,  the  continual  misrepresenta- 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  415 

tions  of  ourselves  and  what  Hildreth  and  I  were  trying  to  stand  for. 

Now  that  I  was  playing  the  conventional  game  of  evasion  and 
hypocritic  subterfuge,  holding  a  nominal  lodging  at  Mrs.  Rond's 
as  one  Mr.  Arthur  Mallory,  and  explaining  my  being  seen  with 
Mrs.  Baxter  by  the  statement  that  I  was  a  writer  sent  down 
by  a  publishing  house  for  the  purpose  of  helping  her  with  a  book 
she  was  engaged  in  writing 

Though  everybody  knew  well  who  I  was,  it  assuaged  the  American 
passion  for  outward  "respectability,"  and  we  were  left,  compara- 
tively speaking,  alone  to  do  as  we  wished.  .  . 

Hildreth  was  a  spoiled,  willful  little  rogue  .  .  once  or  twice  she 
tried  a  "soul-state"  on  me.  .  . 

Walking  through  the  pines  one  day,  suddenly  she  sat  down 
in  her  tracks,  began  crying,  and  affirmed  in  a  tragic  voice,  that 
she  couldn't  stand  the  strain  of  what  she  had  been  through  any 
longer,  that  she  believed  she  was  going  crazy. 

I  immediately  plumped  down  on  all  fours  and  began  running 
up  and  down  through  the  crashing  underbrush,  growling  and  making 
a  great  racket.     Startled,  intrigued,  she  watched  me. 

"Johnnie,  don't  be  such  a  damn  fool!    What  are  you  doing.'"' 

"I'm  going  crazy,  too,  I'm  suffering  the  hallucination  that  I'm 
a  big  brown  bear,  and  you're  so  sweet  that  I'm  going  to  eat  you 
all  up." 

I  ran  at  her.  She  leaped  up,  pealing  laughter.  I  began  biting 
at  her  ankles  .  .  at  the  calves  of  her  legs  .  .  "oof!  oof!  I'm  going 
crazy  too !"  She  squealed,  delighted,  her  mind  taken  off  her 
troubles  .  .  she  struck  me  on  the  head  with  her  open  hands,  to  keep 
me  off  .  .  I  bowled  her  over  with  a  swift,  upward  jump  .  .  I  picked  her 
up  and  carried  her  off,  kissing  her. 

"My  darling  big  rascal .  .  my  own  Johnnie  Gregory !"  She  caught 
me  fondly  by  the  hair,  "I  can't  do  anything  with  you  at  all !" 

Once  again,  waking  me  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night : 

"Johnnie,  I — I  have  a  dreadful  impulse,  an  impulse  to  hit  you  .  . 
I  just  can't  help  it,  Johnnie  dear!  I  must  do  it!"  and  she  fetched 
tne  a  very  neat  blow  in  the  face. 

"You  don't  mind,  do  you  .  .  having  your  own  little  girl  hit  you. J*" 


^16  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

Now,  poor  Penton  would  have  spent  the  remainder  of  the  night 
taking  this  "impulse"  and  the  act  which  followed  it  as  a  serious 
problem  in  aesthetics,  economics,  feminism,  and  what-not  .  .  and 
the  two  would  have  talked  and  discussed,  their  voices  sounding  and 
sounding  in  philosophic  disquisition  .  .  and,  before  the  end,  Hildreth, 
persuaded  to  take  the  situation  seriously  and  enjoying  the  morbid 
attention  given  her,  Hildreth  would  have  gone  off  several  times 
into  hysterics.   .  . 

My  procedure  was  a  different  one : 

" — of  course  I  don't  mind  you  following  your  impulses  .  .  you 
should  .  .  but  also  I  have  just  as  imperative  an  impulse — now  that 
you  suggest  it — to  hit  you." 

And  I  was  not  chary  of  the  vigorous  blows  I  dealt  her,  a  tattoo  of 
them  on  her  back.   .   . 

"Why,  Johnnie,"  she  gasped,  **you — hit — ^me!"  and  her  big  eyes, 
wide  with  hurt,  filled  with  tears.    And  she  cried  a  little.   .   . 

"There,  there,  dear !"  I  soothed.  Then,  with  a  solemn  look  in  ray 
face,  "I  couldn't  resist  my  impulse,  either." 

"You  mustn't  do  that  any  more,  Johnnie  .  .  but, — you  must 
let  me  hit  you  whenever  I  want  to." 

But  she  never  had  that  "impulse"  again. 

But,  though  we  romped  a  lot,  Darrie,  Hildreth,  Daniel,  and  I, — 
and  though  Hildreth  called  me  her  "Bearcat"  (the  only  thing  she 
took  from  the  papers,  whose  title  for  me  was  "The  Kansas  Bear- 
cat") don't  think  that  this  made  up  all  our  life  in  our  cottage.  .  . 

In  the  morning,  after  breakfast,  which  Daniel  and  I  usually  ate 
together  alone,  we  being  the  early  risers  of  the  household — I  re- 
paired to  the  large  attic  and  wrote  on  my  play.  Then  frequently 
I  read  and  studied  till  four,  keeping  up  my  Latin  and  Greek  and 
German,  and  my  other  studies. 

Darrie  also  wrote  and  studied  in  her  room  .  .  Daniel  led  the 
normal  life  of  the  happy  American  boy,  going  where  the  other  boys 
were,  and  playing  with  them — when  he  and  I  didn't  go  off,  as  I  have 
said,  for  the  afternoon,  together,  crabbing  and  fishing. 

Hildreth,  of  course,  was  working  hard  at  her  book — a  novel  of 
radical  love.  .  . 

After  four  was  strolling  time,  for  all  of  us  .  .  along  the  river,  by 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  417 

the  ocean  beach,  further  away  .  .  or  among  the  pines  that  reached 
up  into  our  very  backyard. 

When  the  grocer  boy  or  the  butcher  boy  came,  I  (for  the  sake  of 
outward  appearances)  stepped  out  of  sight,  though  it  irked  me, 
still  to  resort  to  subterfuge,  when  we  had  launched  forth  with  such 
a  fanfare  of  publicity.  .  . 

"Wait  till  Penton  wins  the  decree,  then  we  can  come  out  into  the 
open  and  live  in  a  Free  Union  together — or  marry!"  Hildreth  beg- 
ged of  me  .  .  and  I  acquiesced,  for  the  time.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

Each  evening,  by  the  open  fire,  I  read  aloud  from  the  poets  .  .  or 
Darrie  or  Hildreth  did  .  .  happy  evenings  by  fire-light,  that  shall 
always  live  pleasantly  in  my  memory.  .  . 

We  had  but  few  disagreements,  and  those  trifling  ones. 

Darrie  was  herself  in  the  midst  of  a  romantic  courtship.  'Gene 
Mallows,  the  Californian  poet,  had  fallen  madly  in  love  with  her, 
having  met  her  during  his  brief  visit  to  New  York.  .  . 

Every  day  Darrie  received  her  two,  three,  even  four  letters  from 
him,  couched  in  the  most  beautiful  literary  phraseology  .  .  and  each 
letter  invariably  held  a  sonnet  .  .  and  that,  too,  of  an  amazingly 
high  standard  of  poetic  excellence,  considering  the  number  Mallows 
was  dashing  off  every  day  .  .  many  of  them  were  quite  lovely  with 
memorable  phrase,  deft  turn  of  fancy  or  thought. 

Penton  recalled  Daniel  to  the  city.  .  .  Afraid  now  that  the  papers 
might  locate  him  with  us.  .  . 

We  had  a  few  warm  mid-days  of  glorious  sunshine  still,  and  I  often 
persuaded  Darrie  and  Hildreth  to  take  nude  sunbaths  with  me  back 
of  the  house  .  .  which  we  enjoyed  on  outspread  blankets,  ever  keeping 
a  weather  eye  for  intruders.  .  . 

As  we  lay  in  the  sun  we  read  poetry  aloud.  And  I  read  aloud 
much  of  a  book  that  amounted  to  our  Bible,  Havelock  Ellis's  Sex  in 
Its  Relation  to  Society. 

I  might  add,  for  the  sake  of  the  reader  who  may  be  prone  to 
misinterpret,  that  our  behaviour  was  quite  innocent,  as  we  lay  about 
in  that  manner.  .  . 

Our  best  friend  was  the  artist's  wife,  Mrs.  Rond  .  .  she  was,  in 


4.18  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

her  way,  herself  a  character  .  .  the  poverty  of  her  family  was  ex- 
treme. She  had  a  numerous  menage  of  daughters ;  and  a  horde  of 
cats  as  pets.  Whenever  she  walked  away  from  her  house  the  cats 
followed  her  in  a  long  line,  their  tails  gaily  in  the  air,  like  little 
ships  sailing. 

Mrs.  Rond  smoked  incessantly,  rolling  her  own  cigarettes,  from 
packages  of  Plowboy  tobacco.  .  . 

Her  conversation  was  crisp,  nervous,  keen.  An  intellectual  woman 
of  the  highest  type ;  with  all  her  poverty,  she  preserved  around  her 
an  atmosphere  of  aristocratic  jfineness  (even  if  she  did  smoke  Plow- 
boy)  which  bespoke  happier  days,  in  an  economic  and  social 
sense. 

She  was  thoroughly  radical,  but  quiet  and  unostentatious  about  it. 
She  looked  on  me  and  Hildreth  as  play-children  of  the  feminist 
movement. 

I  think  it  was  the  exaggerated  maternal  instinct  in  her  that  moved 
her  to  foster  and  champion  Hildreth  and  me  .  .  an  instinct  that  made 
her  gather  in  every  stray  cat  she  found  on  the  road  .  .  she  is  the 
only  person  I  have  ever  known  who  could  break  through  the  reserve 
of  the  cat's  nature,  and  make  it  as  fond  and  sentimental  as  a  dog 
is  toward  its  master. 

Mrs.  Rond  knew  all  the  classics,  and,  in  her  library,  which  she 
never  let  go,  when  their  economic  crash  came,  were  most  of  the 
English  poets  and  essayists  and  novelists  from  Malory  and  Chaucer 
down  to  William  Watson  and  W.  L.  George.  .  . 

She  made  us  welcome  at  her  home.  We  formed  a  pleasant  group 
together,  the  occupants  of  my  little  cottage  back  in  the  pines,  and 
she,  her  valitudinarian  husband,  and  her  four  daughters,  the  eldest 
of  whom,  Editha,  was  of  an  exquisite  type  of  frail,  fair  beauty  .  . 
all  her  daughters  had  inherited  their  mother's  keen-mindedness  .  . 
she  had  brought  them  up  on  the  best  in  the  thought,  art,  and  liter- 
ature of  the  world.  .  . 

The  relationship  between  mother  and  daughters  was  one  more  of 
delightful,  understanding  comradeship  than  anything  else  .  .  in  spite 
of  the  fact  of  Mrs.  Rond's  over-developed  maternal  instincts  .  .  a 
favourite  trick  of  the  two  youngest  daughters  being  to  hide  away 
upstairs  and  then  call  out  in  mock  tones  of  agony,  in  order  to  enjoy 
the  sight  of  their  mother,  running  breathless,  up  from  the  kitchen 
or  in  from  the  yard,  and  up  the  stairs,  pale  with  premonition  of  some 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  419 

accident  or  111,  and  crying,  "what's  the  matter?  children,  what's  the 
matter?" 

"Oh,  nothing,  mother  .  .  we're  only  playing." 

And  her  relief  would  be  so  great  that  she  would  forget  to  scold 
them  for  their  childlike,  unthinking  cruelty. 

Just  before  I  had  left  Kansas  to  come  East  on  my  projected  trip 
to  Europe,  the  magazines  had  begun  to  buy  my  poems,  the  best  of 
them — Now  every  poem  of  mine  was  sent  hurriedly  back  with  an 
accompanying  rejection  slip. 

Yet  I  was  sure  that  I  was  writing  better  than  ever  before. 

Simonds,  of  the  Coining  Nation,  and  the  editor  of  the  Kansas  City 
Star  were  about  the  only  editors  who  now  took  my  work.  I  in- 
ferred rightly  that  my  notoriety  was  what  was  tabooing  me.  I 
determined  to  run  up  to  New  York  and  find  out  for  myself  if  this 
was  true! 

As  I  rode  north  along  the  flashes  of  sea,  marsh,  and  town,  I 
thought  of  my  little  flock  that  I  had  left  behind  for  a  day,  with 
intense  satisfaction  and  content.  They  were  mine.  Hildreth  was 
my  woman,  Daniel  had  been  my  child  for  the  space  he  was  with  us. 
And  I  held  Darrie  in  friendly  tenderness,  much  as  the  bourgeois 
business  man  holds  the  supernumerary  women  of  his  household, 
though  she  was  by  no  means  that,  nor  was  she  in  any  way  dependent 
on  me.  .  . 

I  was  finding  it  very  good  to  own,  to  possess,  to  take  root ;  to  be 
possessed  and  owned,  in  turn.  I  carried  an  obscure  sense  of  triumph 
over  Baxter. 


Darrie,  who  had  been  to  town  the  week  before,  had  come  back  with 
a  report  of  Penton's  unhappiness,  his  belated  acknowledgment  that 
he  was  still,  in  spite  of  his  battle  against  the  feeling,  deeply  in  love 
with  his  discarded  wife.  It  was  not  so  easy  to  tear  her  out  of  his 
heart,  she  had  intertwined  so  deeply  there  .  .  eight  years  with  a 
woman,  and  one  child  by  her,  and  affection  for  her  was  no  easy 
thing  to  root  up  from  one's  being. 

"I  sat  there  a  long  while  with  him  in  Riverside  Park,"  Darrie  re- 
ported, "it  was  chilly  and  he  wore  an  old  overcoat  because  he 
couldn't  afford  a  new  one.     His  hair  was  greying  at  the  temples. 


420  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

He  looked  stooped,  aging,  frail  as  if  an  extra  wind  might  lift  him  up 
and  carry  him  away  from  me.  .  . 

*'He  was  worried  about  my  having  been  brought  into  what  he 
called  'the  mess'  .  .  wondered  how  the  papers  had  not  scented  'the 
other  woman'  in  me,  no  matter  how  innocent  I  was  of  that  appella- 
tion. 

"He  seemed  so  lonely  .  .  admitted  he  was  so  lonely.  .  . 

"Johnnie,  you're  both  poor,  dear  innocents,  that's  what  you 
are 

"But  of  the  two  of  you,  you  are  the  harder,  the  best  equipped  to 
meet  the  shock  of  life  .  .  for  you  will  grow  wiser,  where  Penton  never 
will." 

"How  did  Penton  speak  of  me.'"' 

"Splendidly — said  he  considered  that  in  a  way,  perhaps,  he  had 
worked  you  a  wrong,  done  an  injustice  to  you." 

"Nonsense,  the  poor  little  chap !" 

"He  made  me  cry,  he  acted  so  pathetic  .  .  he  seemed  like  a  mother- 
less little  boy  that  needed  a  woman's  love  and  protection." 

"Darrie,  why  don't  you  marry  him?" 

"Now  you're  trying  to  do  with  me  as  he  tried  to  do  with  Ruth 
and  you  .  .  marry  him  .  no  .  .  I'm — I  think  I'm — in  love  with  'Gene 
Mallows." 

Penton  was  pleased  to  hear,  she  said,  that  Daniel  and  I  had  got 
on  so  nicely  together,  while  he  was  down  at  West  Grove.  .  . 

So,  as  I  rode  in  the  dusty,  bumping  train,  my  mind  reverted  to 
our  whole  friendship  together,  and  tenderness  welled  up  in  my  heart 
for  Penton  Baxter. 

•  •••••« 

In  the  office  of  the  New  York  Independent  sat  William  Hayes 
Ward,  old,  bent  over,  with  his  triple-lensed  glasses  behind  which  his 
dim,  enlarged  eyes  floated  spectrally  like  those  of  a  lemur. 

He  greeted  me  with  a  mixture  of  constraint  and  friendliness. 

"Well,  my  boy,  you've  certainly  got  yourself  into  a  mess  this 
time." 

"A  'mess,'  Dr.  Ward?"  I  interrogated,  quoting  back  to  him  the 
word  he  had  used, — with  rebuke  in  my  voice. 

"How  else  shall  I  phrase  it?" 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  421 

** — with  the  understanding  that  I  expect  from  an  old  friend,  one 
who  bought  my  first  poems,  encouraged  my  first  literary  endeavours, 
— who  enheartened  and  helped  me  at  the  inception  of  my  struggle  for 
recognition  and  fame." 

"And  now  you've  won  too  much  of  the  baser  coinage  of  fame, 
of  a  kind  that  a  poet  should  never  have." 

"I  have  a  poem  with  me  .  .  one  on  the  subject  of  what  Christ 
wrote  on  the  sand — after  which  he  bade  the  woman  go  and  sin  no 
more  .  .  and  he  who  was  without  sin  should  cast  the  first  stone." 

Dr.  Ward  looked  over  the  half-moons  of  his  triple  glasses  at  me  .  . 
he  reached  for  the  poem  and  read  it. 

"Yes,  it's  a  fine  poem,  with  that  uniqueness  in  occasional  lines, 
that  occasional  touch  of  power,  that  marks  your  worst  effusions, 
Mr.  Gregory!  .  .  but,"  paused  he,  "we  do  not  allow  the  Woman 
Taken  in  Adultery  in  the  columns  of  the  Independent." 

"Well,"  I  shot  back,  pleased  with  myself  at  the  retort  I  was  mak- 
in,  "well,  I'm  mighty  glad  Christ  didn't  keep  her  out  of  the  pages 
bf  the  New  Testament,  Dr.  Ward!" 

He  barely  smiled.     He  fixed  me  with  a  steadfast  look  of  concern. 

"Are  you  still  with — with  Mrs.  Baxter?" 

"Yes — since  you  ask  it." 

"The  sooner  you  put  that  woman  out  of  your  life  the  better  for 
you." 

"Dr.  Ward — one  moment !  .  .  understand  that  no  woman  I  love 
can  be  spoken  of  as  Hhat  woman'  in  my  presence — if  you  were  not 
an  old  man ! "  I  faltered,  choking  with  resentment. 

"Now,  now,  my  dear  boy,"  he  replied  very  gently,  "I  am  older 
than  you  say  .  .  I  am  a  very,  very  old  man  .  .  and  I  know  life " 

"But  do  you  know  the  woman  you  speak  of.""' 

"I  have  met  Mrs.  Baxter  casually  with  her  husband  several  times." 
He  stopped  short.     He  paused,  gave  a  gesture  of  acquiescence. 

"Oh,  come,  Mr.  Gregory,  you're  right  .  .  quite  right  .  .  I  had  no 
right  whatever  to  speak  to  you  as  I  have 

"But  please  interpret  it  as  my  serious  concern  over  your  career 
as  a  poet  .  .  it  seems  such  a  pity  .  .  you  had  such  a  good  start." 

"You  mean? "  I  began,  and  halted. 

"Precisely  .  .  I  mean  that  for  the  next  two  or  three  years  all  the 
reputable  magazines  will  not  dare  consider  even  a  masterpiece  from 
your  hands." 


422  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

**In  other  words,  if  Shelley  were  alive  to-day  and  were  the  same 
Shelley,  he  would  be  presented  with  a  like  boycott?" 

*'If  his  manner  of  living  came  out  in  the  papers — yes." 

"And  Fran9ois  Villon?" 

"Undoubtedly." 

"I'm  in  good  company  then,  am  I  not?" 

"You  should  thank  me  for  being  frank  with  you." 

"I  do  thank  you  .  .  that  explains  why  the  atmosphere  up  at  the 
office  of  the  National  was  as  cold  as  the  refrigerator-box  of  a  meat 
car,  when  I  was  up  there  an  hour  ago  .  .  but  they  were  not  as  frank 
as  you  .  .  they  acted  like  a  company  of  undertakers  officiating  at  my 
funeral." 

•  •••••• 

I  was  glad  to  find  myself  back  in  my  little  cottage,  that  same 
night — back  in  my  little  cottage,  and  in  the  arms  of  the  woman 
who  was  everything  to  me,  no  matter  if  they  said  she  spelled  the 
ruination  of  my  career. 

For  any  man,  I  held,  and  still  hold,  who  lets  a  woman  ruin  his 
career,  ought  to  have  it  ruined. 

I  did  not  tell  her  of  what  Dr.  Ward  had  told  me.  Why  cause  her 
unnecessary  worry? 

•  •••••• 

After  all,  the  magazine  world  was  not  the  only  medium  to  present 
my  literary  wares  to  the  public.  There  remained  the  book  world, 
a  less  narrow  and  prejudiced  one. 

Kennerley  had  written  me  that  he  waited  eagerly  the  completion 
of  my  Biblical  play. 

And  Zueblin,  of  the  now  defunct  Twentieth  Century  had  just  sent 
me  a  twenty-five  dollar  check  for  a  poem  called  Lazarus  Speaks. 

I  brought  back  with  me  from  New  York  two  books  as  a  present  for 
Hildreth  .  .  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  A  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of 
Woman,  and  The  Life  of  Mary  Wollestonecraft  .  .  these,  were 
two  books  she  had  long  desired.  She  was  thoroughly  pleased  with 
her  resemblance  to  the  frontispiece  picture  of  the  celebrated  woman 
radical,  in  the  Life. 

"You  possess  all  her  vivacity,  all  her  intelligence  .  .  but  you  are 
beautiful  where  she  was  plain  .  .  she  is  like  a  plainer  sister  of  yours." 

While  in  New  York  I  had  also  paid  a  visit  to  the  editor  of  one  of 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  423 

the  biggest  sensational  magazines  in  the  city,  and  I  had  arranged 
with  him,  acting  as  Hildreth's  agent,  for  a  thousand  dollars  ad- 
vance on  her  unfinished  novel.  The  editor  had  dictated  a  letter  in 
which  he  promised  to  deliver  the  thousand  on  receipt  of  two-thirds 
of  the  book.  .  . 

Hildreth  kissed  me  again  and  again  when  I  gave  her  the  letter.  .  . 

"Johnnie,  you  really  are  wonderful  .  .  and  quite  practical,  after 
all." 

•  •••••• 

"And  now,  my  darling  Hildreth,  we'll  take  this  old  world  and 
shake  it  into  new  life,  into  the  vital  thing  I  have  dreamed!"  I 
boasted  grandiloquently.  .  . 

"Here  in  this  little  sequestered  dream-cottage  of  ours  you  and  I 
will  carry  out,  popularise,  through  novels,  poems,  plays,  essays,  and 
treatises,  the  noble  work  that  Ellis,  Key,  and  Rosa  Von  Mayerreder, 
and  others,  are  doing  in  Europe  .  .  and  we  ourselves  will  set  the 
example  of  true  love  that  fears  nothing  but  the  conventional  legal 
slavery." 

"It  will  soon  be  very  cold  down  here,"  commented  Darrie, 
irrelevantly,  "this  is  only  a  summer  cottage,  and  they  say — the  old 
settlers — that  we  are  to  have  a  severe  winter  .  .  the  frost  fish  are 
already  beginning  to  come  ashore." 

•  •••••• 

It  was  generally  known,  sub  rosa,  that  Hildreth  and  I  were  living 
together.  But,  as  long  as  she  pretended  it  was  not  so,  as  long  as 
I  lived  seemingly  in  another  house,  pretending,  under  another  name, 
to  be  Mrs.  Baxter's  literary  adviser,  the  hypocrisy  of  the  world 
was  satisfied. 

I  was,  in  other  words,  following  the  accepted  mode. 

It  was  a  nasty  little  article  by  a  fellow  literary  craftsman  from 
the  Pacific  coast,  that  set  me  off,  brought  me  to  the  full  realisation 
that  I  was  but  playing  the  usual,  conventional  game, — that  roused 
me  to  the  determination  that  I  must  no  longer  sail  under  false 
colours. 

This  writer  retailed  how,  after  a  brief,  disillusioning  few  weeks 
together,  Hildreth  had  grown  tired  of  the  poverty  and  spareness 
of  the  living  a  poet  was  able  to  make  for  her  .  .  of  how  I  was  lazy, 
impliedly  dirty  .  .  of  how,  up  against  realities,  we  had  parted  .  .  I 
had,  he  stated,  in  fact,  deserted  her,  and  was  now  on  my  way  back 


424.  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

to  Kansas,  riding  the  rods  of  freights,  once  more  an  unsavoury  out- 
cast, a  knight  of  the  road  .  .  he  ended  with  the  implication,  if  I 
remember  correctly,  that  the  reception  that  awaited  me  in  Kansas, 
would  be,  to  say  the  least,  problematical. 

Of  course  this  story  was  made  up  out  of  whole  cloth. 

'Gene  Mallows  afterward  informed  me  that  the  big  literary  club 
in  San  Francisco  that  this  hack  belonged  to  had  seriously  considered 
disciplining  him  by  expulsion  for  his  unethical  behaviour  toward  a 
fellow-writer. 

•  •••••• 

But  I  maintain  that  it  was  good  that  he  penned  the  scurrilous 
article.  For  I  had  allowed  happiness  to  lull  my  radical  con- 
science asleep.  It  was  now  goaded  awake.  I  held  a  conference  with 
Hildreth. 

"There  is  now  only  one  thing  for  me  to  .  .  to  come  right  out  with 
it  that  you  and  I  are  living  here  together  in  a  free  union,  and  that 
the  love  we  bear  each  other  not  only  justifies,  but  sanctifies  our  doing 
as  we  do — as  no  legal  or  ecclesiastical  procedure  could.  .  . 

That  here  we  are  and  here  we  intend  to  abide,  on  these  prin- 
ciples— no  matter  what  the  rest  of  the  world  does  or  says  or  thinks." 

*'I  admit,  Johnnie,  that  that  would  be  the  ideal  way,  but "  in- 
terrupted Darrie 

"But  nothing — I'm  tired  of  sneaking  around,  hiding  from  grocers 
and  butcher  boys,  when  everybody  knows 

"And  besides,  Hildreth,"  turning  to  her,  taking  her  in  my  arms, 
kissing  her  tenderly  on  the  brow — "don't  you  see  what  it  all  means  ? 

"As  long  as  I  pretend  not  to  be  living  with  you  I'm  considered  a 
sly  dog  that  seduced  his  friend's  wife  and  got  away  with  it  .  .  ^served 
him  right,  the  husband,  for  being  such  a  boob !'  .  .  'rather  a  clever 
chap,  that  Gregory,  don't  you  know,  not  to  be  blamed  much,  eh?'  .  . 
*only  human,  eh?'  .  .  — 'she's  a  deuced  pretty  little  woman,  they 
say!' 

"Can't  you  see  the  sly  looks,  the  nudges  they  give  each  other,  as 
they  gossip  in  the  clubs?" 

"Don't  let  your  imagination  get  the  better  of  you,  please  don't !" 
urged  Darrie.  .  . 

"No,"  I  went  on,  "I'm  going  to  send  right  now  for  Jerome  Miller, 
a  newspaper  lad  I  knew  in  Kansas,  who's  now  in  New  York  on  a 
paper,  and  give  him  an  interview  that  will  set  us  right  with  the 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  425 

stupid  world  once  and  for  all.  Miller  was  a  fellow  student  of  mine 
at  Laurel  .  .  he's  a  fine,  square  chap  who  will  give  me  a  clean  break  .  . 
was  president  of  our  Scoop  Club." 

"Darling,  darling,  dearest,"  pleaded  Hildreth,  "I  thought  you 
had  about  enough  of  the  newspapers  .  .  you've  seen  how  they've  dis- 
torted all  our  ideals  .  .  how  our  attempt  to  use  them  for  propa- 
ganda has  gone  to  smash  .  .  how  they  pervert  .  .  the  filth  and  abuse 
they  heap  upon  pioneers  of  thought  in  any  direction — ^why  wake  the 
wild  beasts  up  again?" 

"What's  the  use  believing  in  anything,  if  we  don't  stick  up  for 
what  we  believe?" 

"Oh,  go  ahead,  dear,  if  you  feel  so  strongly  about  it,  but — "  and 
her  tiny,  dark  head  drooped,  "I'm  a  little  wearied  .  .  I  want  quiet 
and  peace  a  little  while  longer  .  .  I'm  getting  the  worst  of  it — not 
you  so  much,  or  Penton. 

**I'm  the  woman  in  the  case. 

"Remember  the  invitation  the  other  night,  from  the  Congrega- 
tional minister — for  tea?  He  invited  you  for  tea,  you  remember, 
and  left  me  out?" 

" — remember,  too,"  I  replied  fondly,  caressing  her  head,  "how  I 
didn't  even  deign  to  reply  to  the !" 

"Sh !"  putting  her  hand  gently  and  affectionately  over  my  mouth, 
"don't  swear  so  .  .  very  well,  poke  the  wild  beasts  again !  .  .  but  we'll 
only  serve  as  sport  for  another  Roman  holiday  for  the  news- 
papers." 

I  wrote  Miller  to  come  down,  that  I  had  an  exclusive  interview 
for  him. 

He  arrived  the  very  night  of  the  day  he  received  my  letter. 

Darrie  stepped  out  over  to  the  Ronds',  not  to  be  herself  brought 
into  what  she  had  so  far  managed  to  keep  out  of. 

Hildreth  consumed  the  better  part  of  two  hours  fixing  herself  up 
as  women  do  when  they  want  to  make  an  impression.  .  . 

"Your  friend  from  Kansas  must  see  that  you  haven't  made  such 
a  bad  choice  in  picking  me,"  she  proclaimed,  with  that  pretty  droop 
of  her  mouth. 

"No,  no !  be  a  good  boy,  don't  muss  me  up  now !" 

She  wore  a  plain,  navy-blue  skirt  .  .  wore  a  white  middy  blouse 
with  blue,  flowing  tie  .  .  easy  shoes  that  fitted  snug  to  her  pretty 


426  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

little  feet  .  .  her  eyes  never  held  such  depths  to  them,  her  face  never 
shone  with  such  beauty  before. 

I  wore  a  brown  sweater  vest  with  pearl  buttons  .  .  corduroy 
trousers  .  .  black  oxfords  .  .  a  flowing  tie.  .  . 

A  large  log  fire  welcomed  my  former  Kansas  friend. 

"Well,  Johnnie,  it's  been  a  long  time  since  I've  seen  you." 

"Jerome,  let  me  introduce  you  to  the  only  woman  that  ever  lived, 
or  shall  live,  for  me  .  .  Hildreth  Baxter." 

As  Hildreth  gave  Miller  her  hand,  I  could  see  that  he  liked  her, 
and  that  he  inwardly  commented  on  my  good  taste  and  perhaps 
said  to  himself,  "Well,  Johnnie  is  not  so  crazy  after  all !" 

After  I  had  given  him  the  interview,  he  asked  her  a  few  questions, 
but  she  begged  to  be  left  out,  that  it  was  my  interview. 

"Mr.  Miller,  you  are  a  friend  of  Johnnie's  .  .  I  have  often  heard 
him  speak  highly  of  you;  can't  you  dissuade  him  from  having  this 
interview  printed  .  .  no  matter  if  you  have  been  sent  by  your  paper 
all  the  way  down  here  for  it?" 

Jerome  liked  what  Hildreth  had  said,  admired  her  for  her  common 
sense.  He  offered  to  return  to  the  city,  and  risk  his  job  by 
stating  that  he  had  been  hoaxed. 

"I  will  leave  you  to  argue  it  out  with  him,  Mr.  Miller."  And 
Hildreth  excused  herself  and  went  off  down  the  path  to  the  Ronds' 
too. 

"Johnnie,"  my  friend  urged,  putting  his  hand  on  my  shoulder, 
"your  little  lady  has  a  lot  of  sense  .  .  it  will  kick  up  a  hell  of  a 
row  .  .  it's  true  what  you  say  about  them  rather  approving  of  you 
now,  some  of  them,  considering  you  a  sly  dog  and  so  forth.  .  . 
Yes,  I'm  sorry  to  say,  what  you're  doing,  much  of  the  world  is 
doing  most  of  the  time." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Jerome,  but  there  you've  made  my  point  .  . 
do  you  think  I  want  a  sneaking,  clandestine  thing  kept  up  between 
me  and  the  woman  I  love?" 

"Then  why  not  stay  apart  till  the  divorce  is  granted,  then  marry 
her  like  a  regular  fellow?" 

"Damn  it,  Jerome,  you  don't  understand,  you  don't  get  what  we 
radicals  are  driving  at.  .  ." 

"I'll  take  a  chance  with  my  job  and  quash  this  interview — that's 
how  much  I  like  you,  Johnnie." 

"Oh,  I  know  you  mean  well  enough  .  .  most  of  you  boys  have 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  427 

treated  me  rather  well,  according  to  your  lights  .  .  it's  the  damned 
lead-writers  and  re-writers  and  editorial  writers — they're  the  ones 
that  do  the  damage." 

"You  want  me  to  go  ahead  then?" 

"Yes,  that  is  the  only  way." 

"It  is  a  big  story,  a  real  scoop."  Miller  was  again  the  newspaper 
man  who  had  scored  a  beat  on  rival  newspapers.  .  . 

*'Can't  you  stay  over  night,  Jerome?    We  can  make  room." 

"I  must  catch  the  next  train  back  .  .  I'm  off  now  .  .  there's  the  taxi 
I  arranged  to  have  come  and  take  me  .  .  it's  out  there  now  .  . 
good-bye,  Johnny,  and  God  help  you  and  your  little  girl." 

Hildreth  came  in  soon  after  Miller's  departure,  looking  like  a 
fresh-faced  girl  of  twelve. 

"Did — did  your  friend  think  I  was  good-looking?" 
"Yes,  I  am  sure  he  thoroughly  approved  of  you." 
"To-morrow  another  Roman  holiday  begins." 

The  result  of  that  interview  was  worse  than  I  could  have  surmised. 
All  the  batteries  opened  fire  again.  The  Kansas  papers  called  me 
*'the  shameless  tramp"  .  .  reporters  spilled  from  autos  and  rigs  all 
over  the  front  stoop.  After  giving  a  few  more  interviews  in  the 
mad  hope  that  this  time  they  would  get  it  straight,  I  saw  that  the 
harvest  was  even  greater  abuse  and  defamation  .  .  and,  as  Hildreth 
had  predicted,  she  came  in  for  more  than  her  share  of  the  moral 
indignation  of  people  who  sold  that  precious  ware  at  so  much  a 
line,  or  were  paid  salaries  for  such  work.   .  . 

We  practically  deserted  our  house  so  the  reporters  could  not 
find  us.  .  . 

Many  of  the  reporters  never  came  near  the  house.  Instead,  lurid 
stories  were  concocted  in  the  back  rooms  of  nearby  roadhouses. 
And,  failing  to  find  us  at  home,  interviews  were  faked  so  badly 
that  they  verged  on  the  burlesque  .  .  where  not  vulgar,  they  were 
vicious  .  .  words  were  slipped  in  that  implied  things  which,  expressed 
clearly,  had  furnished  ample  grounds  for  libel. 

Hildreth  and  I  were  pictured  as  living  on  frost  fish  almost 
entirely ;  the  fish  that  run  along  the  ocean  shore,  and,  growing  numb 
with  the  cold  of  autumn,  are  tossed  up  on  the  sand  by  the  waves.  .  . 

I  was  depicted  as  strident-voiced  .  .  belligerent  .  .  waving  my  arms 


428  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

wildly.  It  was  said  that,  full  of  threats,  I  had  taken  a  shotgun 
menacingly  from. a  rack  .  .  that  a  vicious  bull  dog  lay  between  my 
feet,  growling  .  .  that  I  went,  sockless,  in  sandals  .  .  had  long, 
flowing,  uncombed  hair.  .  . 

Once  a  party  of  three  reporters,  from  a  big  metropolitan  paper, — 
two  men  and  a  woman,  after  stopping  at  a  nearby  road  house  till 
they  were  well  lit, — drove  about  in  a  livery  rig  till  they  finally 
located  us  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Rond.   .   . 

All  the  old  nonsense  was  re-written  .  .  things  we  had  never  said 
or  even  had  in  our  thought  .  .  vulgarities  alien  to  Hildreth's  mouth 
or  mine.  .  . 

The  final  insinuation — a  sly  touching  on  the  fact  that  the  Rond 
family  was  on  intimate  terms  with  me,  and  that  the  young  daughters 
were  attractive-looking,  and  seemed  to  favour  the  ideals  I  expressed 
with  murmurs  of  approval  .  .  thus  the  story  afterward  appeared.  .  . 

Mrs.  Rond,  after  a  peculiarly  impertinent  question  of  the  woman 
member  of  the  party,  realised  by  this  time  that  the  three  reporters 
were  more  than  a  little  tipsy,  and  ordered  these  guardians  of  the 
public  morality  out  of  the  house.   .   . 

In  the  first  place,  they  had  wormed  admittance  through  a  fraud 
to  Hildreth  and  me  .  .  the  woman  falsely  pretended  that  she  was  a 
friend  of  Hildreth's  mother  .  .  a  great  stroke  of  journalistic 
enterprise. 

Mrs.  Rond's  rebuke  was  so  sharply  worded  that  it  got  through 
even  their  thick  skins.  .  . 

I  must  say,  though,  that  the  behaviour  of  these  three  was  not 
characteristic  .  .  generally  the  newspaper  men  and  women  were 
most  considerate  and  courteous  .  .  even  when  they  afterward  wrote 
unpleasant  articles  about  us.  And  often  I  have  had  them  blue-pencil 
wild  statements  I  had  made,  which,  on  second  thought,  I  wished 
withdrawn  .  .  and  during  all  the  uproar  I  never  had  a  reporter 
break  his  word,  once  given. 

"Say,  Mr.  Gregory,  that's  great  stuff,  do  let  us  keep  that  in 
the  interview." 

"Please,  boys,  draw  your  pencil  through  that  .  .  it  doesn't  sound 
the  way  I  meant  it." 

"Oh,  all  right" — a  sigh — "but  it's  a  shame  to  leave  it  out." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  429 

The  last  and  final  outrage — perpetrated  by  the  papers  by  orders 
from  above,  I  am  sure.  .  . 

Even  the  second  uproar  had  died  down. 

Always  the  "natives"  in  West  Grove  and  round  about,  our  neigh- 
bours, behaved  considerately,  let  us  alone  .  .  we  were  greeted  politely 
wherever  we  went.  .  . 

But  now,  Mrs.  Rond  informed  me,  strange  men  were  appearing 
on  the  street  corners,  conducting  a  regular  soapbox  campaign 
against  us.  .  . 

Some  of  them  were  seen  to  get  on  and  off  trains  going  to  and 
coming  from  New  York.  .  . 

Goaded  and  spurred  by  these  mysterious  outsiders,  the  village 
people  began  to  act ,  aloof,  and  the  more  ignorant  of  them  sullen 
toward  us  .  .  but  as  yet  it  was  only  in  the  air,  nothing  concrete  to 
lay  hold  of. 

•  •••••• 

Mrs.  Suydam  had  run  away  with  her  plumber  .  .  the  interviews 
she  gave  out  showed  that  it  was  our  case  mainly  that  had  impelled 
her  to  launch  forth  in  imitation.  .  . 

Others,  in  a  wave  of  sex-radicalism,  were  running  off  together  all 
about  the  country.  .  . 

But  it  was  Mrs.  Suydam's  case  that  interested  me  and  Hildreth 
most  .  .  she  was  a  dainty,  pretty  little  slight  thing,  as  Hildreth  was 
— I  could  judge  by  her  pictures.   .   . 

"Hildreth,"  I  urged,  "let's  drop  Mrs.  Suydam  a  note  encouraging 
her  .  .  she's  probably  without  a  friend  in  the  world,  she  and  her 
man  .  .  they're  trying  to  oust  her  from  her  flat  .  .  she's  being 
hounded  about." 

"My  God,  Johnnie  dear,  let's  don't!  .  .  they'll  only  give  our  letter 
to  the  papers  .  .  let's  let  well  enough  alone  once  more  .  .  the  grocer 
boy  passed  me  in  the  street  to-day  and  didn't  tip  his  hat  to  me." 

I  was  sitting  at  Mrs.  Bond's  tea-table  having  afternoon  tea  with 
her.  She  had  sent  one  of  her  girls  over  to  the  cottage  to  tell  me 
she  wished  to  see  me  "alone"  .  .  "on  a  matter  of  great  importance." 

The  cats,  who  had  trailed  her  eldest  daughter,  Editha,  across 
to  our  place,  followed  us  back  again  with  sailing  tails  in  the  air. 

Mrs.  Rond  poured  me  a  cup  of  strong  tea. 


480  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

"Drink  that  first,  then  I'll  give  you  a  little  information  that 
won't  be  so  very  agreeable  to  you." 

The  glimmer  of  satiric  yet  benevolent  humour  that  was  never 
long  absent  from  her  eyes,  lightened  there  again,  as  she  rolled 
and  lit  a  "Plowboy." 

"Have  you  noticed  a  change  in  the  weather?  A  storm  is  blowing 
up.  I'm  speaking  figuratively  .  .  I  might  as  well  out  with  it, 
Johnnie, — there's  a  report,  growing  in  strength,  that  a  mob  of 
townspeople  is  scheduled  to  come  your  way  to-night,  some  time, 
and  treat  you  to  a  serenade  of  protest  and  the  traditional  yokel 
hospitality  of  mobs  .  .  a  coat  of  tar  and  feathers  and  a  ride  on  a 
rail  beyond  the  town  limits." 

"So  it's  come  to  that,  has  it?" 

"Johnnie,  it  isn't  the  townsfolk  that  started  it  .  .  of  that  I  am 
certain  .  .  left  alone,  they  would  still  have  been  content  to  mind 
their  business,  and  accept  you  and  Hildreth  on  a  friendly  basis.  .  ." 

She  brought  up  the  story  of  the  strange  men  haranguing  from 
street  corners   again.  .  . 

"It's  the  New  York  newspapers,  or  one  or  two  of  the  most 
sensational  of  them,  that  are  back  of  this  new  phase." 

"You  mean,  Mrs.  Rond,  that  they  would  dare  go  so  far  as  to 
instigate  an  attack  on  me  and  Hildreth  .  .  with  possibly  fatal 
results  ?" 

"Of  course  they  would  .  .  they  need  more  news  .  .  they  want 
something  more  to  happen  .  .  to  have  all  this  uproar  end  tamely 
in  happy,  permanent  love — that's  what  they  couldn't  endure.  .  . 

"Well,"  she  resumed  after  a  pause,  "what  are  you  going  to  do? 
You're  not  afraid,  are  you?" 

"To  tell  the  truth  I  am,  very  much  afraid." 

"You  and  Hildreth  and  Darrie  would  best  take  the  three  o'clock 
train  back  to  New  York  then." 

"I  haven't  the  least  intention  of  doing  that." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

" — ^just  let  them  come," 

"You  won't— fight?" 

"As  long  as  I'm  alive.'* 

"You  just  said  you  were  afraid." 

"Where  a  principle  is  considered,  one  can  be  afraid  and  still 
stick  by  one's  guns." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  431 

**You're  a  real  man,  John  Gregory,  as  well  as  a  real  poet,  and 
I'm  going  to  help  you  .  .  if  it  was  the  townspeople  alone  I  would 
hesitate  advising  you  .  .  but  it's  dirty,  hired  outsiders  who  are 
back  of  this  feeling.  Here !"  and  she  stepped  over  to  the  mantel 
and  brought  a  six-shooter  to  me  and  laid  it  in  my  hand,  "can 
you  shoot?" 

"A  little,  but  not  very  well." 

"It's  loaded  already  .  .  here  is  a  pocketful  of  extra  bullets." 

She  filled  my  coat  pocket  till  it  sagged  heavily.  I  slipped  the 
gun  in  my  hip  pocket. 

"You're  really  going  to  stand  them  off  if  they  come?" 

"As  long  as  no  one  tries  to  break  into  my  house  I  will  lie  quiet  .  . 
the  minute  someone  tries  to  break  in,  I'll  shoot,  I'll  shoot  to  kill, 
and  I'll  kill  as  many  as  I  can  before  they  take  me.  I'll  admit  I'm 
frightened,  but  I  have  principles  of  freedom  and  radical  right,  and 
I'll  die  for  them  if  necessary." 

Mrs.  Rond  put  her  hand  on  my  shoulder  like  a  man. 

"You  have  the  makings  of  a  fine  fanatic  in  you  .  .  in  the  early 
Christian  era  you  would  have  been  a  church  martyr." 


I  held  immediate  consultation  with  Darrie  and  Hildreth  and 
they  were  both  scared  blue  .  .  but  they  were  game,  too. 

Darrie,  however,  unfolded  a  principle  of  strategy  which  I  put 
into  immediate  effect  .  .  she  advised  me  to  try  a  bluff  first. 

When  I  walked  downtown  within  the  hour,  to  obtain  the  New 
York  papers,  there  was  no  doubt,  by  the  even  more  sullen  attitude 
of  the  inhabitants  that  I  passed  on  the  street,  that  something 
serious  was  a-foot.  .  . 

I  sauntered  up  to  the  news  stand,  took  my  Times  .  .  hesitated, 
and  then  tried  the  bluff  Darrie  had  suggested : 

"Jim,"  I  began,  to  the  newsdealer,  who  had  been  enough  my 
friend  for  us  to  speak  to  each  other  by  our  first  names,  "Jim,  I  hear 
the  boys  are  planning  a  little  party  up  my  way  to-night !" 

"Not  as  I've  heard  of,  Johnnie,"  Jim  answered,  with  sly  evasion, 
and  I  caught  him  sending  a  furtive  wink  to  a  man  I'd  never  seen 
in  town  before. 

"Now,  Jim,  there's  no  use  trying  to  fool  me.     I'm  on!'* 

The  newspaper  stand  was,  I  knew,  the   centre  for  the  town's 


432  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

dissemination  of  gossip.  I  knew  what  I  said  would  sweep  evary- 
where  the  moment  I  turned  my  back. 

"As  I  said,"  I  continued,  "I'm  on!  And  I  looked  about  and 
spoke  in  a  loud  voice,  while  inwardly  quaking,  "Yes,  I  know  all 
about  it,  and  I  want  to  drop  just  this  one  hint  .  .  tell  the  boys  they 
can  come.  Tell  them  they'll  be  welcome.  .  .  So  far  I've  had  no 
trouble  here  .  .  everybody  has  been  right  decent  with  me,"  affecting 
a  Western,  colloquial  drawl,  "and  I've  tried  to  treat  everybody, 
for  my  part,  like  a  gentleman, — ain't  that  true.'*" 

"That's  true,  Mr.  Gregory"  (it  was  suddenly  "Mr.  Gregory" 
now,  not  "Johnnie").  "As  I  was  saying  just  the  other  day,  there's 
lots  worse  in  the  world  than  Mr.  Gregory  that  ain't  found  out." 

*'I  want  to  leave  this  message  with  you,  Jim.  I'm  from  the  West. 
I'm  a  good  shot.  I've  got  a  six-shooter  ready  for  business  up  at 
the  cottage.  I've  got  a  lot  of  extra  bullets,  too.  As  I've  said,  I 
ain't  the  kind  that  looks  for  trouble,  but  when  anybody  goes  out 

of  their  way Well,  as  I  said  before,  as  soon  as  the  boys  begin 

getting  rough — I'll  begin  to  shoot  .  .  I'll  shoot  to  kill,  and  I'll  kill 
everybody  I  can  get,  till  someone  gets  me." 

"Yes,  Mr.  Gregory!" 

"Mind  you,  Jim,  I've  always  considered  you  as  my  friend.  I 
mean  what  I  say.  I'm  a  householder.  I'm  in  the  right  .  .  if  the 
law  wants  me  that's  another  matter  .  .  but  no  group  of  private 
citizens " 

"Good-bye,  Mr.  Gregory." 


I  walked  rapidly  back  to  the  cottage.  I  was  thinking  as  rapidly 
as  I  walked.  For  the  space  of  a  full  minute  I  thought  of  packing 
off  ignominiously  with  my  little  household. 

But  before  I  stepped  in  at  the  door  something  murky  had  cleared 
away  inside  me. 

"Oh,  Hildreth!  Darrie!" 

The  women  came  dragging  forward.  But  with  them,  too,  it  was 
a  passing  mood. 

My  indignation  at  the  personal  outrage  of  the  impending  mob 
incited  me  as  them  .  .  till  I  think  not  one  of  the  three  of  us  would 
have  stepped  aside  from  the  path  of  a  herd  of  stampeding  elephants. 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  433 

"The  yokels,"  and  Darrie's  nostrils  flared,  her  blue  blood  showing, 
"to  dare  even  think  of  such  an  action  against  their  betters !" 

•  •••••  • 

We  lit  a  roaring  log  fire.  We  sat  reading  aloud  from  Shelley.  As 
the  hours  drew  by  .  .  eight  .  .  nine  .  .  ten  .  .  eleven  .  .  there  is  no 
doubt  that  our  nerves  grew  to  a  very  fine  edge.  .  . 

And  at  twelve  o'clock 

Far  ofl",  at  a  respectful  distance,  a  carol  of  rough,  humorous 
voices  sang  the  song,  "Happily  Married"! 

"H-a-double-p-y,"  etc. 

And  we  knew  that  my  bluff  had  worked. 

•  •••••• 

The  next  day  we  went  through  a  let-down. 

Hildreth  was  quite  nerve-shaken,  and  so  was  Darrie. 

But  I  strutted  about  with  my  chest  out,  the  cock  of  the  walk. 

But,  nevertheless,  and  despite  their  bravery  and  the  fiasco  of 
the  mob's  attack,  the  hearts  seemed  to  have  left  the  bodies  of  both 
**my"  women. 

•  •••••• 

The  cold  weather  that  Darrie  and  the  old  settlers  had  predicted 
was  now  descending  on  the  countryside.  .  . 

.  •  •  •  «  • 

One  morning  Hildreth  timidly  and  haltingly  proposed  returning 
to  her  mother's  flat  in  New  York.  .  , 

I  could  stay  and  finish  my  play  and,  having  disposed  of  it,  come 
likewise  to  the  city,  and  rent  a  flat,  and  she  would  come  and  live 
with  me  again.  I  am  sure  she  was  sincere  in  this.  Or  I  could 
come  to  New  York,  rent  a  furnished  room  somewhere,  and  she  would 
be  with  me  daily,  as  now.  .  . 

Darrie  seconded  Hildreth's  proposal. 

And  yet  my  heart  broke  as  Hildreth  rode  off  in  the  carriage  that 
came  for  her.  I  kissed  her,  and  I  kissed  her  .  .  despite  the  stern, 
unbending  figure  of  the  aged,  moral  coachman  in  the  seat. 

Then,  after  she  had  started  off,  I  pursued  the  carriage,  overtook 
it  by  a  short  cut,  cried  out  that  I  had  still  something  I  had 
forgotten  to  give  her  .  .  it  was  more  kisses  .  .  and  I  kissed  and 


434  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

kissed  her  again  and  again  .  .  and  we  both  wept,  with  aching  hearts. 

Then  the  moral  coachman  unbent. 

" — beg  pardon,"  he  ventured,  "but  I'm  sorry  for  you  two  children 
.  .  oh,  yes,  I  know  all  about  you  .  .  everybody  knows  .  .  and  I  wish 
you  good  luck." 

Darrie  stayed  over  for  the  night,  after  Hildreth  left,  in  order  to 
see  to  packing  the  latter's  clothes  in  her  trunk  .  .  Hildreth  had  been 
too  upset  to  tend  to  the  packing.  .  . 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

The  next  day  Darrie  left,  too. 

"You  have  no  more  need  of  your  chaperon,"  she  laughed,  a  tear 
glinting  in  her  eye.  .  . 

•  ••••«• 

So  now  I  was  left  utterly  alone.  .  . 

And  a  hellish  winter  descended  upon  the  coast  .  bitter,  blowing, 
frosty  winds  that  ate  into  the  very  bone  and  made  a  fellow  curse 
God  as  he  leaned  obliquely  against  them. 

I  learned  how  little  a  summer  cottage  was  worth — in  winter. 

Mrs.  Rond  lent  me  a  huge-bellied  stove,  the  fireplace  no  longer 
proving  of  comfort. 

But  though  I  kept  the  stove  so  hot  that  it  glowed  red, 
I  still  had  to  hug  it  close,  my  overcoat  on,  and  a  pair  of 
huge,  woollen  socks  that  I'd  bought  at  the  general  store  down  in 
West  Grove. 

But,  despite  the  intense  cold,  I  worked  and  worked  .  .  my  play, 
Judas  was  nearing  completion  .  .  its  publication  would  mean 
the  beginning  of  my  life  as  a  man  of  letters,  my  "coming  out"  in 
the  literary  world. 

I  ate  my  food  from  open  cans,  not  taking  the  trouble  to  cook. 

At  night  (I  had  pulled  my  bed  out  close  to  the  stove)  I  heaped 
all  the  blankets  in  the  house  over  me,  and  still  shivered  .  .  I  lived 
on  the  constant  stimulus  of  huge  draughts  of  coffee.  .  . 

"Only  a  little  while  longer  .  .  only  a  few  days  more  .  .  and  the 
play  will  then  be  finished  .  .  and  it  will  be  published.  And  it  will 
be  produced. 

"Then  the  woman,  my  first  and  only  woman,  she  will  be  with  me 
again  forever  .  .  I'll  take  her  to  Italy,  away  from  all  the  mess  that 
has  cluttered  about  our  love  for  each  other." 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  485 

One  day,  in  an  effort  to  keep  the  house  warm — the  one  room  I 
confined  myself  to,  rather, — I  stoked  the  stove  so  hot  that  the 
stovepipe  grew  red  to  the  place  where  it  went  through  the  roof 
into  the  attic.  .  . 

My  mind,  at  the  time,  was  in  far-off  Galilee.  I  was  on  the  last 
scene  of  the  last  act  of  my  play  .  .  the  disciples,  after  the  crucifixion, 
were  gathered  in  the  upper  room  again,  waiting  for  the  resurrected 
Christ  to  appear  to  take  the  seat  left  vacant  for  Him.  ,  . 

I  looked  up  from  the  page  over  which  my  frosty  fingers 
crawled.  .  . 

The  boards  were  smoking  faintly.  If  I  didn't  act  quickly  the 
house  would  catch  fire  .  .  I  laughed  at  the  thought  of  the  curious 
climax  it  would  present  to  the  world;  I  imagined  myself  among 
the  embers. 

I  must  lessen  the  heat  in  the  stove.  I  ran  and  brought  in  a 
bucket  of  water.  I  pried  open  the  red-hot  door  of  the  stove  with 
a  stick  that  almost  caught  flame  as  I  pried. 

With  a  backward  withdrawal,  a  forward  heave,  I  shot  the 
contents  of  the  pail  into  the  stove.  .  . 

There  followed  a  detonation  like  a  siege  gun. 

The  stove-lid  shot  so  close  to  my  head  it  was  no  joke  .  .  it  took 
out  the  whole  window-sash  and  lit  in  the  outside  snow.  The  stove 
itself,  balanced  on  bricks  under  its  four  feet,  slumped  sidewise, 
fortunately  did  not  collapse  to  the  floor  .  .  the  stovepipe  fell, 
but  the  wire  that  held  it  up  at  the  bend  also  prevented  it  from 
touching  the  carpet  .  .  the  room  was  instantly  full  of  suffocating 
soot  and  smoke. 

I  crawled  forth  like  a  scared  animal  .  .  found  myself  in  the 
kitchen.     In  the  mirror  hanging  there  I  looked  like  a  Senegalese. 

Then,  finding  myself  unhurt,  I  laughed  and  laughed  at  myself, 
at  the  grotesqueness  and  irony  of  life,  at  everything  .  .  but  mostly 
at  myself. 

I  righted  the  stove  as  best  I  could,  brought  the  door  in  again 
from  where  it  had  bitten  to  the  bottom  of  the  snow  drift,  like  an 
angry  animal.  It  was  still  uncomfortably  hot  .  .  shifting  it  from 
hand  to  hand  I  managed  to  manoeuvre  it  back  to  a  slant  position 
on  its  hinges.  .  . 

Before  I  could  light  another  and  more  moderate  fire,  unexpectedly 
the  inspiration  for  the  completion  of  the  last  scene  of  Judas — 


436  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

the  inspiration  for  which  I  had  been  waiting  and  hoping — rode  in 
on  me  like  a  wave.  .  . 

•  •••••• 

Christ,  in  the  spirit,  unseen,  comes  to  his  waiting  disciples. 

Thomas.  Someone  has  flung  open  the  door.  The  wind  has  blown 
out  the  candles. 

Andrew.    Nay,  I  sit  next  the  door.     'Tis  closed ' 

John.   He  has  risen.     He  is  even  now  among  us. 

Thomas.    Someone  sits  in  the  chair.     I  feel  a  presence  by  my  side. 

Peter.  Brethren,  'tis  the  Comforter  of  which  He  spake!  [A  misty 
light  fills  the  room.'\ 

John.  Ah,  'tis  He !  'tis  He !  He  is  with  us.  He  has  not  forsaken 
us.  Verily,  He  has  risen  from  the  dead  into  a  larger  life  than  ever! 
Dear  Lord,  Beloved  Shepherd  of  Souls,  is  it  Thou? 

Thomas.  I  believe,  I  believe!  It  is  past  speech!  Thy  Kingdom 
comes  as  I  dreamed,  but  dared  not  believe ! 

John.    He  lives.  He  lives — the  very  Son  of  God! 
Behold  the  Kingdom  that  He  promised  us ; 
'Tis  no  vain  dream,  'tis  everlasting  truth! 
He  shall  bind  all  the  nations  into  one. 
The  love  of  him  shall  flood  the  world ! 

He  shall  conquer  with  love  and  gentleness,  and  not  with  the  sword. 
He  shall  live  again  in  every  heart  that  loves  its  fellow  men. 
Peace  he  will  plant  where  discord  grew  before. 
He  will  save  and  heal  the  souls  of  men  forever  and  forever. 
Ah,  dear  Master,  forgive  us,  we  beseech  Thee, 
For  deeming  Thou  hadst  ever  died. 

And  so,  having  nearly  burnt  a  house  down,  and  perhaps  myself 
with  it,  I  had  written  "finis"  to  my  four-act  play  called  Judas. 

Hildreth  and  I  had  written  faithfully  to  each  other  twice  a  day 
.  ,  the  absurd,  foolish,  improper  letters  that  lovers  exchange  .  . 
I  wrote  most  of  my  letters  in  the  cave-language  that  we  had  invented 
between  us.  .  . 

And  we  marked  all  the  interspaces  with  secret  symbols  that 
meant  intimate  caresses  .  .  kisses  .  .  everything.  .  . 

The  play  brought  to  a  successful  end,  I  realised  that  for  one 


TRAMPING  ON  LIFE  437 

day  no  letters  had  come  from  Hildreth.  And  the  next  none  came 
.  .  and  the  next.   .   . 

I  besieged  the  post  office  five  and  six  times  a  day  in  a  panic, 
till  the  postmaster  first  pitied  me,  then  grew  a  bit  put  out.  .  . 

A  week,  and  not  a  single  letter  from  the  woman  I  loved.  .  . 

The  day  before,  Mrs.  Suydam  and  her  plumber  affinity,  for 
whom  I  felt  myself  and  Hildreth  and  Penton  largely  responsible, 
in  the  example  we  had  set — the  day  before  these  two  young  people 
had  committed  suicide. 

As  I  walked  about  the  cottage,  alone,  I  had  the  uncanny  feeling 
that  the  place  was  haunted  .  .  that  maybe  the  ghosts  of  these  two 
poor  children  who  had  imitated  us  were  down  there  haunting  me 
.  .  why  had  not  Hildreth  and  I  written  that  joint  letter  to  them  as 
I  had  suggested ! 

— only  a  little  thing,  but  it  might  have  given  them  courage  to  go 
on!  .  . 

•  •••••• 

I  was  at  the  long-distance  phone. 

*'Hildreth !"  I  cried,  hearing  her  dear  voice.  .  . 

"Oh,  how  good,  how  sweet,  my  love,  my  life,  it  is  to  hear  your 
voice  again  .  .  tell  me  you  still  love  me !" 

"Hush,  Johnnie,  hush !"  answered  a  far-away,  strange  voice  .  . 
"I'm  writing  you  a  long  letter  .  .  somebody  might  be  listening  in." 

"Did  you  see  in  the  paper  about  Mrs.  Suydam?" 

*'Yes,  it  was  a  terrible  thing." 

*' — if  we  had  only  written  to  them !" 

" — that  was  what  I  thought  P' 

"Shall  I  come  to  the  city  now?  My  book  is  finished.  I'm  a  real 
author  now." 

"The  book  is  finished?  That's  fine,  Johnnie  .  .  but  don't  come  to 
the  city  now  .  .  wait  my  letter." 

.  .  .  •  •  •  . 

When  the  bulky  letter  came,  the  roads  rang  like  iron  to  my  step. 
I  wouldn't  allow  myself  to  read  it  in  the  post  office.  I  hugged  the 
luxury  of  the  idea  of  reading  it  by  the  fire,  slowly.  I  kissed  the 
still  unopened  envelope  many  times  on  the  way  home. 

I  broke  the  letter  open  .  .  it  fell  out  of  my  hands  as  if  a  paralysis 
had  smitten  me.  .  . 

No,  no,  I  would  not  believe  it  ,  .  it  could  not  be  true  .  .  in  so 


438  TRAMPING  ON  LIFE 

short  a  time  .  .  with  hands  that  shook  as  with  palsy  I  plucked 
it  up  from  the  chilly,  draughty  floor  again.  .  . 

"Another  man!" 

She  had  met,  was  in  love  with,  another  man ! 

Oh,  incredible!  incredible!  I  moaned  in  agony.  I  rocked  like 
an  old  woman  rocking  her  body  in  grief. 

Now  was  my  time  to  end  it  all ! 

Damn  all  marriage !  Damn  all  free  love  I  God  damn  to  hell  all 
women  I 

I  thought  of  many  ways  of  committing  suicide.  But  I  only 
thought  of  them. 

I  flung  out  into  the  night,  meaning  to  go  and  tell  Mrs.  Rond 
of  the  incredible  doom  that  had  fallen  upon  me,  the  unspeakable 
betrayal. 

"Poor  Penton !"  I  cried.     "Poor  Penton!" 

At  last  I  sympathised  fully  with  him. 

Ashamed,  in  my  slowly  gathering  new  man's  pride,  I  did  not  go 
in  to  see  Mrs.  Rond.  Instead,  I  drove  past  her  house  with  that 
curious,  bent-kneed  walk  of  mine, — and  I  walked  and  walked,  not 
heeding  the  cold,  till  the  ocean  shouldered,  phosphorescent,  in  the 
enormous  night  toward  me. 

Home  again,  I  slept  like  a  drunkard.  It  was  broad  day  when 
I  woke. 

I  had  dreamed  deliciously  all  night  of  Hildreth  .  .  was  strangely 
not  unsatisfied — when  I  woke  again  to  the  hell  of  the  reality  her 
letter  had  plunged  me  into. 

Mrs.  Rond  .  .  of  course  I  finally  took  her  into  my  confidence, 
and  told  her  the  entire  story.  .  . 

"Not  to  speak  in  disparagement  of  Hildreth,  I  knew  it  all  along, 
Johnnie  .  .  knew  that  this  would  be  the  result  .  .  but  come,  come, 
you  have  bigger  things  in  you.  .  .  Penton  Baxter  will  win  his 
divorce  sooner  or  later.  Hildreth  has  another  man,  poor  little 
girl!  You  have  all  that  God  means  you  to  have  at  present: 
Your  first  book!" 

THE  8ND 


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